Case ID: ohio-st_108/html/0117-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wanamaker, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Wellston Iron Furnace Co. v. Rinehart, Admr.
    
      Procedure statutes—Remedial and liberally construed—Venue— Personal injury by motor vehicle—Survivorship of action— Personal representative may sue, ivhen.
    
    
      1. All statutes relating to procedure are remedial in their nature and should he liberally construed and applied to effect their respective purposes.
    2. A cause of action for personal Injury survives the death of the injured party, and all the rights, privileges, incidents and options which the injured party may have had in his lifetime inure to the benefit of his personal representatives or next of kin, respectively, unless the statutes clearly provide otherwise.
    (No. 17750
    Decided June 5, 1923.)
    Error to the Court of Appeals of Franklin county.
    Harvey Rinehart, as administrator of the estate of Sarah Rinehart, deceased, filed his petition and praecipe for service of summons in the Franklin county common pleas eonrt, pleading that said Sarah Rinehart was wrongfully and negligently killed by an automobile operated by the Wellston Iron Furnace Company. She lived for several weeks in considerable pain and agony, and incurred certain medical bills.
    This was set forth as the basis of the first cause of action contained in the petition.
    Thereafter she died as the result of the injury, and the second cause of action was also pleaded.
    Thereupon the defendant filed its motion therein solely for the purpose of quashing the service of summons, upon several grounds, the chief of which was that Franklin county was not the proper venue for said action and that no lawful service had been made on the defendant company.
    That motion was sustained by the court of common pleas, and exceptions noted, and plaintiff not desiring to plead further, judgment was. entered in favor of the defendant company. Error was prosecuted to the Court of Appeals to reverse the judgment. On hearing had in that court, the judgment of the court of common pleas was reversed, and the case is now before the Supreme Court to test the soundness of the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
    
      Messrs. Arnold, Game & Wright and Mr. Joseph McGhee, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Mr. F. 8. Mormett and Mr. Chas. R. Roll, for defendant in error.
   Wanamaker, J.

This cause involves the construction and application of Section 6308, General Code, which- reads:

“Actions for injury to a person or property, caused by the negligence of the owner of a motor vehicle, may be brought, by the person injured, against such owner in the county wherein such injured person resides. A summons in such action against any defendant or defendants shall be issued to the sheriff of any county within this state wherein such defendant or defendants reside and may be served as in other civil actions, notwithstanding any contrary provision of law for the service of summons in civil actions.”

The first question presented under such Code section is whether the section is broad enough to cover an action by an administrator for the personal injuries sustained by Sarah Einehart in her lifetime, occasioned by the negligence of the owner of a motor vehicle, as set forth in the first cause of action; the second is whether or not such section is broad enough to cover the second cause of action, to-wit, the damages for the wrongful death by the negligence of the owner of the motor vehicle.

If that section is broad enough to cover either causé of action, then the motion to quash the service of summons should have been overruled, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed.

That there are two causes of action legally pleaded so far as this motion is concerned .is clear by virtue of the doctrine announced by this court in Mahoning Valley Ry. Co. v. Van Alstine, Adm’r, 77 Ohio St., 395, 83 N. E., 601, 14 L. R. A. (N.S.), 893. Likewise, it has long ceased to be an open question in Ohio that the right to sue for injuries, either in the first cause of action or the second cause of action, does survive and succeed to the personal representative for the benefit of the estate, or next of kin, as provided in the statute.

The question then is really one of venue: Where should the action be brought? So far as has been brought to our attention, the only case dealing with this section of the General Code that has been before this court is the one challenging the constitutionality of this statute. In Allen v. Smith, 84 Ohio St., 283, 95 N. E., 829, Ann. Cas., 1912C, 611, that question was determined in favor of the validity of the statute. Judge Spear wrote the opinion of the court, in which he makes some rather pertinent observations touching the nature of the statute, and the need of such statute.

On page 294 of 84 Ohio St., on page 832 of 95 N. E. (Ann. Cas. 1912C, 611), of the opinion, he observes :

“It is a remedial act, intended, in the first instance, to regulate the use of automobiles, and to provide for the safety of others who are lawfully using the public highways. Why should they not be regulated, and why should not the old-fas1,ioi:':d user of the highway be protected by the law? Doesn’t everybody know that the automobile is a new machine of travel; its use a new use of the highway; that it is dangerous to other travelers; that its power, its capacity for speed, the temptation it affords the reckless driver to operate it at a dangerous rate and in a careless manner, all distinguish the automobile from all other vehicles. Surely it cannot be necessary to further elaborate this fact so patent to every observing and reading person. The automobile is, therefore, a class by itself, the users of such machines a class by themselves, and legislation in recognition of this condition is based upon a solid, easily recognized distinction.”

This opinion was written in 1911. The number of automobiles, passenger ears, and trucks operated upon the public highways of Ohio at that time was 25,788. In 1923 there are operating upon the public highways of Ohio 851,500 passenger cars and trucks, almost fortyfold as many, to say nothing of the increased speed and power of the modem motor. If those dangers were patent in 1911, what must be said in 1923?

The statute declared the equitable rule that the remedy should be provided in the jurisdiction in which the injured party resided. This section of the statute places paramount the rights of the injured person and permits such injured person to sue at his own home in his own county. It gives the option to the person wronged rather than to the person who commits the wrong.

Now these statutes regulating procedure are clearly remedial in their nature, as Judge Spear observes in the Allen case, supra¡, and therefore such sections should be liberally construed and applied to effect their self-evident purpose.

When it is held that either or both such causes of action as are pleaded in this cause survive the death of the injured party, then it must follow that with those causes of action there also survived all the incidents, accessories, or options which the original party had—here, the injured party. With the survival of the right of action there also is intimately associated the right to remedy, what such remedy shall be, and where such remedy shall be secured ; these are inseparably bound in the survival of the right of action unless this statute expressly provides otherwise.

Judgment affirmed.

Marshall, C. J., Robinson, Matthias, Day and Allen, JJ., concur.