150 F.2d 902 | 2d Cir. | 1945
The defendant appeals from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff in an action brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. The plaintiff’s testator, a railroad engineer, "was killed while engaged in interstate commerce, and the defendant conceded upon the trial that the accident was due to negligence chargeable to it. The deceased left no widow, children, or parents surviving; his nearest surviving relatives were two sisters and a nephew, none of whom was in any way dependent upon him financially. The following are the other relevant facts which the jury may be assumed to have found. The deceased was domiciled in Pennsylvania, as was the plaintiff, who was his cousin: a daughter of his mother’s brother. He had lived with his mother until her death in January, 1937, when the plaintiff and her husband, at his request, came to live with him. At first she and her husband paid $75 a month towards the upkeep of the house; but the husband died shortly after they came to live with him; and thereafter she paid nothing, but received from him $40 to $50 a month for her personal expenses, and a monthly allowance for the upkeep of the house. When the decedent’s brother died, the amount which he paid for the food and maintenance of the house was somewhat reduced, but he continued to allow her the same amount for her personal use. She had no other income or money with which to buy food or to maintain herself.
The only point presented on this appeal is whether in the circumstances just stated, plaintiff had any standing to sue under § 51, Title 45 U.S.C.A., as “next of kin dependent upon such employee.” We quote in the margin the relevant words of that section.
The plaintiff relies chiefly upon the well-settled law that recovery by any of the persons named in the statute is limited to the pecuniary loss suffered. Michigan Central R. Co. v. Vreeland, 227 U.S. 59, 33 S.Ct. 192, 57 L.Ed. 417, Ann. Cas.1914C, 176; Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe R. Co. v. McGinnis, 228 U.S. 173, 33 S.Ct. 426, 57 L.Ed. 785. However, the converse by no means follows: i. e. that all who suffer pecuniary loss by the death may recover. So much is certainly not true. No doubt, there would have been an intelligible purpose in so providing, but from Lord Campbell’s Act forward that has never been .the law. The plaintiff cannot, and does not, invoke such a purpose, and must be, and is, content with a less comprehensive one. She says, following Notti v. Great Northern R. Co., 110 Mont. 464, 104 P.2d 7, 8, that the words should be read as follows: “for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee (sustaining pecuniary loss because of his death) and, if none, then of such employee’s parents (if they have sustained pecuniary loss because of his death) and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee.” The statute sets up a hierarchy of three classes : (1) The widow and children; (2) parents; (3) next of kin. These are mutually exclusive: that is, when there is any recovery in a preferred class there can be none in any deferred class; but we can find no decision but Notti v. Great Northern R. Co., supra, which holds that, when none of the members of a preferred class have suffered any loss, the members of the deferred class can take. It is possible that New Orleans & Northeastern R. v. Harris, 247 U.S. 367, 372, 38 S.Ct. 535, 62 L.Ed. 1167, did not actually decide the opposite: it may there have been assumed that the widow could have recovered something, in spite of her long disappearance; indeed, that appears to have been decided in Southern Railway v. Miller, 4 Cir., 267 F. 376, 381. Perhaps some such assumption was the basis of the decision in Lytle v. Southern Railway, 152 S.C. 161, 149 S.E. 692; Id., 171 S.C. 221, 171 S.E. 42, 90 A.L.R. 915, where the court treated a woman who had left the deceased and was living in open adultery, as not his widow. In spite of the fact that she could not in fact have suffered any loss, the court might have supposed that she could recover something, if still a wife. While, therefore, there may be no decision holding the opposite of Notti v. Great Northern R. Co., supra, the proposition there laid down would be so arbitrary and capricious in application that it cannot be the law. There can be not the least question that the recovery of any amount, however small, by any member of a preferred class is a bar to recovery by all members of deferred classes. St. Louis San Francisco R. v. Seale, 229 U.S. 156, 162, 33 S.Ct. 651, 57 L.Ed. 1129, Ann.Cas. 1914C, 156; Taylor v. Taylor, 232 U.S. 363, 34 S.Ct. 350, 58 L.Ed. 638. For instance, in the case of a woman who abandons her home, even though she might recover something, it would be little, and yet it would oust a mother who was absolutely dependent on the deceased; and the same would also be true of a child, who, though independently wealthy, got something, though little. Similarly of a father, to whom his son gave something, as against a sister who lived with him and depended upon his support. It seems to us incredible that a statute, which certainly requires such exclusions, excepts cases where the members of the preferred class get nothing, instead of a pittance. On the contrary, we hold that it is the existence of members of preferred classes that bars members of deferred classes, and that the question whether they suffer any loss is irrelevant.
If this be true as between classes, it seems to us plain that an opposite principle should not be introduced in determining recovery among the next of kin themselves. As we have just seen, a widow or children who have suffered only a.trifling loss, absolutely exclude parents, however needy; and parents who have suffered only
Judgment reversed; complaint dismissed.
“Every common carrier by railroau * * * shall be liable for damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in (interstate) commerce, or, in case of the death of such employee. to his * * * personal representative, for tbe benefit of tbe surviving widow or bus,band and children of such employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee.”