The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 483
xv, 1025 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
PRESTON V. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.
ing, continues, and may be asserted at any time until it is barred by a
statute of limitations.
It follows, therefore, that it can be brought and asserted at any time
unless there is such a bar. We have here two rights of action, abso-
lutely distinct and different in character and origin. The husband had
a right of action for the legal injury he sustained, at common law.
That action, it is true, he could not bring unless he brought it within
the time limited by statute. That statute, however, was directed only
against his right of action, and had no effect upon other rights of ac-
tion by other people. The widow also has her right of action, which,
as before stated, she did not have at common law. She has it only as
the gift of the statute, and she in turn may be limited in the time, and
is limited in the time, within which she must bring it. The time limit
to her action may, however, and in fact does, differ from the time limit
imposed upon the husband's action. When, therefore, we are inquir-
ing whether her action is brought in time, we must look to the statute
which regulates that, and not to the statute which regulates the bring-
ing of the action by the husband.
Getting all her rights from the statute, she must, of course, meet its
conditions. Let us see what they are and whether she has met them.
For clearness and brevity they may be enumerated: (1) Her husband
must have been injured; (2) the proximate cause of that injury must
have been the negligence of the defendant; (3) death must have result-
ed from the injury, in the sense of the injury being the proximate
cause of the death; and (4) she must have brought her action within
one year of the death. The argument concedes that each and every
one of these conditions she has fully met.
There is, however, a fifth condition, which presents in itself the
whole point of the argument. This condition is that the husband shall
have brought in his lifetime no action for the recovery. The argu-
ment requires us to read this as meaning that the husband, not only
should not have redressed the injury in his lifetime, but also that he
had an existing right of action which had not been barred by the,stat-
ute of limitation up to the time of his death, or in fact up to the instant
of time at which the widow's right of action arose.
This presents the point on which, as it seems to us, the whole ques-
tion pivots. The Legislature might have given a right of action to the
widow only in case the husband at the time of his death had an action
unbarred by the statute. The real question, however, is not what the
statute might have done, but what it did do. Lord Campbell's Act and
the statutes in many, or at least some, of the states, in effect does this.
The question, however, is whether the Pennsylvania statute does. It
is clear that the statute gives no right of action to the widow for death
resulting from injuries to the husband, where the husband had redress-
ed his own injury.
There is no inconsistency in holding that a voluntary release is the
equivalent of an action brought, because this is the fair meaning of
the statute. For some reason the Pennsylvania Legislature chose a
different phraseology from that used in the other acts. Whatever the
reason, we must interpret the words used, and the words used do not
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This document can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Legislative Document.
The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/498/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.