13 S.D. 489 | S.D. | 1900
This action by a mother to recover damages for the death of a son, caused, it is claimed,.by the negligence of a mining company, resulted in plaintiff’s favor, and from a judgment of §1,300 the defendant appeals. -
It appears from the record that the son, 34 years of age, and unmarried, was killed while doing some carpenter work for appellant in one of the compartment shafts of the Holy Terror mine, and left surviving him the respondent, two brothers, and a sister. There being no issue, nor wife, nor father living at the time of the accident resulting in death, decedent’s property, both real and personal, would pass to the above mentioned next of kin, pursuant to the general statute of succession and distribution. Comp. Laws § 3401. Under the view we shall take, the point made by counsel for appellant that, assuming respondent to be a real party in interest, the brothers
In Jordan’s Adm’r. v. Railroad Co. 89 Ky. 40, 11 S. W. 1013, it was pleaded in bar that the deceased left no widow or child. To this the plaintiff replied that the deceased left as heirs a father, mother, sister, and brother, and in adhering to its former construction of the statute, it is said by the co.urt that: “No person has a legal cause of action against another for a wrongful or negligent act, and it may be safel-y said legislative power to give it does not exist, unless he has sustained pecuniary injury by it; for the foundation of every action for a tort is actual pecuniary injury, without which there can be legally assessed neither compensatory nor punitive damages. It seems to us clear it was not intended that creditors of the deceased should have any part of what may be recovered under