State v. Pittsburgh & Connellsville Rail Road

Aivey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an action brought in the name of the State, as legal plaintiff, for the use of the widow and infant child of Thomas Allen, deceased, who was killed while in the employment of the defendants, as fireman on a locomotive engine, in January, 1874. The action is brought under the 65th Article of the Code, secs. 1 and 2, which gives a right of action whenever the death of a person shall he caused by the wrongful act, neglect or default of another, “and the act, neglect or default is such as would (if death had not ensued) have entitled the party injured to maintain an action and recover damage in respect thereof.” The ⁴⁵ action is required to be brought in the name of the State, for the benefit of the wife, husband, parent, or child, as the case may be, of the person whose death shall have been so caused; “and in every such action, the jury may give such damages as they may think proportioned to the injury resulting from such death to the parties respectively for whose benefit such action shall be brought, and the amount so recovered, after deducting the costs not recovered from the .defendant, shall be divided amongst the above mentioned parties, in such shares as the jury by their verdict shall find and direct.” The declaration makes all proper averments to entitle the plaintiffs to maintain the action under the statute; but the defendants have pleaded that the accident and injuries to the deceased, resulting in his death, “happened and occurred in the State of Pennsylvania, and beyond the territorial limits of the State of Maryland.” To this plea the plaintiffs demurred ; and in connection with the issue of law thus presented, it is admitted by agreement, that hoth the injury to and the death of Allen occurred in the State of Pennsylvania, and that, at the time of such injury and death, the deceased was a citizen and resident of this State, in the employ of the defendants. The defendants were incorporated by Acts of the Legislatures of this State and of the State of Pennsylvania, and operate their railroad leading from the city of Cumberland, in Maryland, to the city of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania.

The question presented is, whether the statute of this State, under which the present action is brought, embraces and can be made to apply to the case of a wrongful act or neglect occurring in another State, whereby death has been caused? The Court helow overruled the demurrer, and gave judgment for the defendants, and that judgment, we think, is sustainable both upon reason and authority. It is very true, as a general proposition, that actions for injuries, ex delicto, to the person, or to personal property, ⁴⁶ are transitory, and the venue ruay he laid in any county, though the wrong be committed out of the jurisdiction of the Court, or beyond the territorial limits of the State. Northern Central R. Co. vs. Scholl, 16 Md., 331 .

But when the wrong has been actually committed in a foreign jurisdiction, the action is maintained here upon certain well defined presumptions of law, which cannot apply in a case like the present. When a party v;ho has suffered a personal injury, or injury to his personal property, in another State, and seeks redress against the wrong-doer here, he brings with him from the foreign jurisdiction his cause of action ; and the Courts here entertain his appeal for redress upon the assumption that the act complained of was a wrong by the laws of the State where committed. If not an actionable wrong there, it would be contrary to all reason that it should be made one, by simply invoking redress of the Courts here. If that could be done, it would he in the power of one State to prescribe rules, no matter how arbitrary, to govern persons and things in another State; and thus contravene the fundamental principles, maintained by all nations, that every independent State has an exclusive right to regulate persons and things within its own territorial limits, and that the laws of a State or country, “can have no intrinsic force, proprio vigore, except within the territorial limits and jurisdiction of that country.” Sto.

Conf. L., secs. I, 22. In the absence of anything to the contrary, the presumption is that the common law prevails in the State where the alleged wrong was done, and the Courts here, acting upon that presumption, afford the common law remedy for the injury complained of.

But as was said by Denio, J. in Whitford vs. Panama R. Co., 23 N. Y., 468 , “no such presumption obtains respecting the positive