Agricultural & Mechanical Ass'n v. State ex rel. Carty

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This suit was brought under the Negligence law, by a father to recover damages for the death of his minor son, .caused, as it is alleged, by the negligence of the defendant. Many actions have been brought under this statute, and they seem to be daily increasing in number. The ⁹⁹ legal principles which govern them are familiar, but there is always more or less difficulty in the application of these principles to particular cases.

Here the boy killed was nineteen years and seven months old, and he met liis death under peculiar circumstances. We gather from the record, that in October, 1888, the defendant hold a fair in its grounds at Hagerstown. Among the exhibitions offered for the amusement of visitors were balloon ascensions and trapeze performances in the air. The preparations for these were in a circular enclosure in a part of the fair grounds, and several large poles were planted by which the balloons could be stayed and held while they were in process of inflation and made ready to be sent up.

One of these poles, which it is alleged was insecurely fixed in the ground, fell upon the hoy and killed him. He had a ticket as keeper of stock, which admitted him to the fair grounds free of charge, but with all the privileges of an ordinary visitor. There was the usual conflict of testimony as to negligence on the part of the defendant, and as to contributory negligence on the part of the deceased. But on this part of the case little need be said.

We find no error warranting a reversal, in the instructions on these subjects given to the jury by the learned -Judge before whom the case was tried, in-granting the plaintiff’s third and fifth prayers, and the defendant’s third, fourth, eighth, ninth and tenth prayers. The defendant’s fifth, sixth, and seventh prayers on the same subject were properly rejected, because those granted fully covered the law as to this branch of the ease. The multiplication of prayers substantially the same on subjects about which the law has been thoroughly well settled is a practice much to he deprecated. But the question most earnestly argued arises upon the rulings as to the measure of damages.

The Judge was clearly right in instructing the jury that in estimat ¹⁰⁰ ing the damages they were confined to the pecuniary damages sustained by the plaintiff. The authorities all agree that in suits under Lord Campbell’s Act, and similar statutes in this country, pecuniary damages only can be recovered. Nothing can be given the father as a solatium for the bereavement suffered by the loss of his child. The statute does not deal with the priceless Amine at which a father holds the life of his child, and only professes to compensate him for the pecuniary loss he may sustain by his death.

But the Court told the jury, that in estimating such damages they could alloAv the father what they may believe, from all the evidence in the case, will be an adequate compensation “for the loss of his son’s life,” and refused to instruct them that they could only giAre such as they may believe from the evidence will be an adequate eonqpensation for the loss of his son’s services “until he should arrive at the age of twenty-one years.” So the question is fairly raised Avhether in a suit by a father under this statute to recover damages for the death of a minor child, the jury should be alloAved to take into account any expectation of pecuniary benefit to the plaintiff from the continuance of the child’s life beyond minority. There is conflict of authority on this subject in other States. Pennsylvania Railroad Company vs. Lebe, 33 Penn. State Rep., 330; Caldwell vs. Brown, 53 Pa., 453; Birkett vs. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 110 N. Y., 504 .

But so far as this State is concerned Ave think the question has been settled. It first arose in the case of State, use of Coughlan vs. Balto. & Ohio R. R. Co., 24 Md., 84 ; which Avas decided in 1865, and is among the first, if not the first case, in which this statute was construed, it having been passed in 1852. In that case the boy killed wasbetAveen ten and twelve years of age. He had no father liAÚng, and the suit was brought by his AvidoAved mother, Avho had a large family, and kept a small grocery store.

He ¹⁰¹ was her eldest child, a smart, likely lad, who attended the store when his mother was absent, and his services were worth to her from $5 to $6 per month at the time the accident occurred. The Court below (MabttiX, -7.) instructed the jury on the question of damages, that they could only give the mother such sum as they “may believe from all the evidence in the case will be an adequate compensation for the loss of her son’s services from the time of his death to the period when, if he had lived, he would have attained the age of twenty-one years.” This instruction was vigorously assailed by able counsel, in argument, but this Court affirmed it, and said : “ To submit to a jury the value of a life without limit as to years, would have been to leave them to speculate upon its duration without any basis of calculation. The law entitles the mother to the services of her child during minority only; beyond this, the chances of survivorship, his ability or willingness to support her, are matters of conjecture too vague to enter into an estimate of damages merely compensatory. According to the appellant’s theory, the mother and son are supposed to live on together to an indefinite age ; the one craving sympathy and support, the other rendering reverence, obedience, and protection.

Such pictures of filial piety are inestimable moral examples, beautiful to contemplate, but the law lias no standard by which to measure their loss.” It has been suggested that by alluding to the fact that the mother was entitled by law to the services of her child during minority only, the Court intended to say that all actions under this statute must be founded on legal liability alone. But we do not so understand the Court’s judgment. What the Court was enforcing and deciding was that juries ought not to be allowed in such cases to assess damages upon vague conjecture or speculation. The danger of verdicts founded on mere guess work is alluded to in a previous part of the opinion, where it is ¹⁰² said that “ generally speaking, the influence of the Court in this class of cases should be exerted to restrain those excesses into which juries are apt to run.” The legal right of the mother to the services of her minor son is referred to as furnishing a safe basis