41 Pa. Super. 617 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1910
Opinion by
The plaintiff recovered a verdict of $779, as damages for
The other question is of a more serious character, and we are without direct authority in this state in regard to it. Prior to the act of July 10, 1901, the mother of an illegitimate child could not recover in such a case.
The Act of April 26, 1855, P. L. 309, provides that the persons entitled to recover damages for any injury causing death, shall be the husband, widow, child or parent of the deceased and no other relative. By the Act of May 14, 1857, P. L. 507, it is provided that in any and every case where the father and mother of an illegitimate child or children shall enter into the bonds of lawful wedlock, and cohabit, such child or children shall thereby become legitimated and enjoy all the rights and privileges as if they had been born during the wedlock of their parents. The next step in this remedial legislation is in the Act of April 6, 1868, P. L. 67, which provides, that all marriages theretofore contracted between parties within the degree of affinity as prescribed by act of 1860, of which issue is born, are thereby legalized, and the child or children of such marriages shall have all the rights and privileges of children born in lawful wedlock. This was followed
Prior to 1874, a great number of private or special acts of assembly were passed, providing that certain named illegitimate children of certain named parties, “shall be legitimated, and shall have and enjoy all the rights and privileges of children born in lawful wedlock, with the right to inherit and transmit any estate whatsoever.”
The next act on the subject is the one which is vital to this case, that of July 10,1901. It is entitled an act, “to regulate and define the legal relation of an illegitimate child or children, its or their heirs, with each other,-and the mother and her heirs.” The first section is as follows: “That illegitimate children shall take and be known by the name of their mother, and the common-law doctrine of nullius filius, shall not apply as between the mother and her illegitimate child or children, but the mother and her heirs and her illegitimate child and its heirs, shall be mutually liable one to the other, and shall enjoy all the rights and privileges one to the other, in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if the said child or children had been born in lawful wedlock.” The second section provides, “The mother of an illegitimate child, her heirs
The plaintiff was originally married to a man named Ward, who died more than a year prior to the birth of her son, Willie, and after his birth she was married to her present, husband. While the action was originally brought in the name of George Thompson and Mary Thompson, the record was subsequently amended by striking therefrom the name of George Thompson, it being conceded that he was improperly joined with the mother as a plaintiff.
In construing the act of 1901 we are aided by many decisions in arriving at a proper interpretation of the legislative will; all of its parts are to be taken together, and the legislative intention so ascertained will prevail over its lit-, eral import, or its strict letter; the title may be considered, and the construction most agreeable to reason and justice shall be adopted as embodying the intention of the lawmakers, for it will not be presumed that the legislature contemplated unreason or injustice. While this is a statute in derogation of the common law, and as such it is to be strictly construed, yet it is not to be extended by implication beyond the legal- import of .the words used, so as to embrace cases or acts not clearly described by such words, or to bring them within a prohibition or penalty of such a statute. A strict construction does not mean that words will be so restricted as not to have their full meaning, and that the rule of strict construction will, not be applied with such technicality as to
In Moritz v. Garnhart, 7 Watts, 302, the Supreme Court held that the grandfather of an illegitimate child might maintain an action on the case for the abduction of the illegitimate child of his daughter, Judge Gibson saying, “Though a bastard be not looked upon as a child for any civil purpose, the ties of nature are respected in regard to its maintenance, and can it be said, having bestowed his affection on this child and reared it by his bounty, he shall not be permitted to exercise the rights of a father to it, as against an intermeddler. It would be a reproach to the law if he should not. The stern simplicity of feudal principles is gradually bending to the more complicated relations of a milder civilization.” Prior to 1901, the right's • even of the mother of an illegitimaté child were very circumscribed.
In Bartolett v. Achey, 38 Pa. 273, it is said, the meaning of the statute if plain, is to be followed, notwithstanding, as in any other case. Strict construction is not the same thin'g as construing everything to defeat the action; this is not what is meant by the expression. In Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 144 U. S. 47, the rule is stated, “Nothing is better settled than that statutes should receive a sensible construction, such as will effectuate the legislative intention, and, if possible, so as to avoid an unjust or an absurd conclusion,” citing many authorities. Harkins v. Phila. & Read. R. R. Co., 11 W. N. C. 120 (decided in 1881), held that the mother of a bastard child
In interpreting this statute, the question is not, Could the
The last consideration of the question .by the Supreme Court is in Com. v. Mackey, 222 Pa. 613, and it is there held in referring to this act of 1901, by Judge Brown that, not only are all the rights and privileges of a child born in lawful wedlock conferred upon any illegitimate child, as between it and its mother, but these rights and privileges are to be enjoyed in the same manner and to the same extent as if the child had been born in lawful wedlock .... the expressed purpose of the act is to legitimate an illegitimate child as .to its mother, and, as a proper, logical and humane incident to such
As said by Judge Woodward in Killam v. Killam, 39 Pa. 120, the words used by the legislature were large enough to confer all the civil rights of legitimacy, and as it was a remedial and humane law, it ought not to be cramped in the construction.
The opinion of the learned trial judge in denying the motion for judgment for the defendant, fully justifies his disposition of all the matters raised by the questions involved.
The assignments of error are overruled and the judgment is affirmed.