Case Title: Lady v. Ketchum

Citation: 186 Kan. 614, 352 P.2d 21

Docket Number: 41,790

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1960-05-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
186 Kan. 614 (1960)
352 P.2d 21
AULINE LADY, Appellee,
v.
RICHARD E. KETCHUM and STATE AUTOMOBILE AND CASUALTY UNDERWRITERS, Appellants.
No. 41,790

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed May 14, 1960.
James P. Mize, of Salina, argued the cause, and C.L. Clark and T.M. Lillard, Jr., both of Salina, were with him on the brief for the appellants.
Robert H. Royer, of Abilene, argued the cause, and Paul H. Royer and James E. Ahearn, both of Abilene, were with him on the brief for the appellee.
*615 The opinion of the court was delivered by
PRICE, J.:
This is an action to recover for the alleged wrongful death of Gerald Lady which occurred on February 1, 1957, as the result of a highway collision.
Defendants appeal from orders overruling their demurrer to the original petition and their motion for judgment on the pleadings and record.
The action was commenced on January 27, 1959, by Auline Lady, widow of deceased, and her petition alleged there had been no probate of the estate of decedent; that more than one year had expired since his death, and that the action was brought for the exclusive benefit of plaintiff and her four minor children.
The petition further alleged that her husband's death was caused by the negligence of defendant Ketchum in the operation of his truck, and that Ketchum's insurance carrier was defendant State Automobile and Casualty Underwriters. The allegations of negligence need not be set out. The prayer was that plaintiff recover judgment against defendants and each of them.
Defendants filed a joint demurrer to the petition on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action in favor of plaintiff against either defendant. This demurrer was argued on May 18, 1959, and taken under advisement. On May 25, 1959, plaintiff's counsel, by letter, requested that the court sustain the demurrer; that plaintiff be granted leave to file an amended petition instanter, and that defendants be allowed twenty days in which to answer or otherwise plead to the amended petition.
On June 10, 1959, the court sustained the demurrer, allowed plaintiff to file an amended petition, and granted defendants twenty days within which to plead thereto.
On June 12, 1959, plaintiff filed her first amended petition. It adopted and realleged all of the allegations of the petition and further alleged that at all times material her deceased husband was a resident of Abilene, Kansas; that she was the surviving widow; that no administration had been had on his estate in Kansas or elsewhere, and that more than one year had expired since his death.
In passing, it should be noted that in this first amended petition, as in the petition. Auline Lady was listed as sole plaintiff.
On July 28, 1959, defendants filed their answer to the first amended petition. It admitted that plaintiff was the surviving widow of the deceased; that he was fatally injured on February 1, 1957, as the result of a collision with a truck driven by defendant *616 Ketchum, but that his death was directly and proximately caused by his own contributory negligence, and then alleged the following:
On August 13, 1959, plaintiff procured an order allowing her twenty days from date in which to reply or otherwise plead to the answer.
On the same date, August 13, 1959, plaintiff filed her notice of appeal to this court from the previous order sustaining defendants' general demurrer to the petition. (The appeal was subsequently dismissed pursuant to rule 2 of this court on October 15, 1959.)
On August 17, 1959, plaintiff filed a motion to vacate the previous order sustaining defendants' general demurrer to the petition. Following a hearing on this motion the court, on August 26, 1959, sustained plaintiff's motion to vacate the previous order and entered an order overruling the demurrer. (The rulings and orders in question were made within the same term.)
On August 27, 1959, plaintiff filed a motion for leave to amend the first amended petition so as to correct and eliminate inaccuracy in the name and capacity of the party plaintiff and truly to reflect in her further pleading that the action is brought on behalf of plaintiff and under statutory assignment as provided by G.S. 1949, 44-504, as amended, on behalf of her deceased husband's employer and its insurance carrier as their interests may appear.
On August 31, 1959, defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, alleging that their answer was served and filed on July 28, 1959; that plaintiff had neither replied nor demurred to the answer, and that the pleadings on file conclusively show, as a matter of law, that defendants are entitled to judgment.
Thereafter, on September 15, 1959, plaintiff's motion for leave to *617 amend the first amended petition was allowed, and on the same date she filed her second amended petition, which reads:
*618 Defendants immediately filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings and record on the grounds the pleadings wholly failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action in favor of plaintiff against defendants or either of them; that the action is barred by the statute of limitations, and that as a matter of law defendants are entitled to judgment.
The parties concede that this motion was considered and treated as a demurrer. The motion was overruled on September 28, 1959, and defendants thereupon perfected this appeal.
Due to the rather "irregular" state of the pleadings in this case, several questions pertaining to the propriety of the various intermediate rulings are raised by the parties. Each has been examined and considered, but it is felt that a discussion of them would serve no purpose other than merely to prolong this opinion. We therefore proceed to the basic and decisive question involved.
Insofar as here material, G.S. 1959 Supp. 44-504 reads:
Here the deceased met his death on February 1, 1957. The petition was filed by the widow as sole plaintiff, for the benefit of herself and minor children, on January 27, 1959, just four days less than two years from the date of death. The petition contained no mention of the deceased's employer or of workmen's compensation. Defendants contend that under the plain language of the statute, above, any action prosecuted by the dependents of a deceased workman must be instituted within eighteen months from the date of the fatal injury  and, this action not being filed until long after *619 the expiration of the eighteen-month period  and filed in the form in which it was  was barred by the statute in question. (Elam v. Bruenger, 165 Kan. 31, 193 P.2d 225; Krol v. Coryell, 168 Kan. 455, 214 P.2d 314; Wise v. Morgan-Mack Motor Co., 173 Kan. 372, 246 P.2d 308; Terrell v. Ready Mixed Concrete Co., 174 Kan. 633, 258 P.2d 275; Whitaker v. Douglas, 179 Kan. 64, 292 P.2d 688; Erb v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rly. Co., 180 Kan. 60, 299 P.2d 35; Turner v. Benton, 183 Kan. 97, 325 P.2d 349.)
Concededly, an action for wrongful death  irrespective of 44-504  must be brought within two years (G.S. 1959 Supp. 60-3203). The first amended petition was filed on June 12, 1959, long after the two-year period had expired. It adopted by reference the allegations of the petition to the effect the action was brought for the exclusive benefit of plaintiff and her four minor children, and again no reference was made to the deceased's employer or to workmen's compensation. Defendants contend the first amended petition was likewise barred.
The second amended petition, above set out, filed on September 15, 1959, and some six weeks after defendants filed their answer, alleges that the action is brought by plaintiff on behalf of herself, her minor children, and the deceased's employer and its insurance carrier, as their interests may appear, under the statutory assignment provided by 44-504. Defendants contend the plaintiff thus expressly admits all of the jurisdictional facts to show the action is governed by the provisions of 44-504, exactly as was alleged in their answer; that neither the deceased's employer nor its insurance carrier has yet commenced an action, and that plaintiff's reference to them in her second amended petition  even if it had been filed within the two-year period  is not a compliance with the statutory provision which authorizes the employer to bring the action in his own name or in the name of the dependents for their benefit, as their interest may appear. In other words, it is argued that the second amended petition attempts to bring the action in the form and manner just opposite that authorized by the assignment portion of the statute, and it is contended that from its inception the action always has been brought and prosecuted solely by plaintiff widow.
In her brief plaintiff concedes that her original petition was filed by her as sole plaintiff with no mention of her deceased husband's employer or its insurance carrier; that all proceedings in the case subsequent to the filing of the original petition occurred after the *620 two-year statute of limitations had run under the wrongful-death statute; that under 44-504 the sole right to prosecute the action vested in deceased's employer eighteen months after his death, which date was prior to the commencement and filing of the action by her, but contends that the "cause of action" for wrongful death has remained the same in all three petitions; that the sole change brought about by the amendments is additional allegations setting forth the statutory capacity of plaintiff to bring the action and those allegations stating the interest of deceased's employer and its insurance carrier, and that any allegations in the second amended petition to the contrary constitute mere surplusage which she desires to strike and will strike at the appropriate time.
In other words, despite her concessions, plaintiff contends that it was proper to permit her to amend in order to show the capacity in which she sues (Early v. Burt, 134 Kan. 445, 7 P.2d 95, opinion on rehearing 135 Kan. 717, 12 P.2d 1117); that the cause of action was not changed by any of the amendments so made, and that such amendments relate back to the original filing of the action so as to bring it within the two-year period of the statute of limitations. In support of her position, and that taken by the trial court, plaintiff relies almost entirely on what was said and held in Sundgren v. Topeka Transportation Co., 178 Kan. 83, 283 P.2d 444, which was a case in which the injured workman filed an action in his own name approximately twenty-one months after the date of the injury. (In passing, it should be noted that under the provisions of 44-504, above, the action, if brought by an injured workman, must be brought within one year from the date of the injury, whereas in the case of death of a workman, as here, the action must be brought by his dependents or personal representative within eighteen months from the date of the fatal injury.) It was contended by defendant that the court erred in overruling its demurrer to the petition, as amended, on the theory that if the workman fails to bring the action within the first year and the employer determines to do so during the second year in the name of the workman, then the employer, in order to state a cause of action sufficient to withstand a general demurrer, must disclose on the face of the petition filed within that period both his identity and the necessary facts showing his right as statutory assignee of the cause of action to bring the suit.
In rejecting this contention this court pointed out that defendant's construction of the statute (44-504) was too narrow, and *621 that the liability of the tort-feasor remains the same for two years after the injury no matter who brings the action  the employee or the employer. In the course of the opinion it was said:
Defendants contend the facts in the Sundgren case are readily distinguishable from those before us in that there the amended petition, which was filed more than two years after the cause of action accrued, alleged that it was brought by the employer in the name of the employee for the benefit of the parties as their interest might appear  whereas here the second amended petition specifically alleges the action is brought by plaintiff on behalf of herself, her minor children, the deceased's employer and its insurance carrier, as their interest may appear  in other words, in the form and manner just opposite that provided by the statute, and unlike the amendment in the Sundgren case.
We believe defendants' interpretation of the statute is too narrow and that the second amended petition  although perhaps not technically a model of pleading  relates back to the petition, and that any discrepancy between the amendment in the Sundgren case and that in the case before us is a distinction without a difference. We therefore hold the action was not barred by either the eighteen-month or two-year statute of limitations, and the judgment is affirmed.
PRICE, J., dissenting:
In my opinion this case has been decided incorrectly.
It is conceded by all parties that two statutes are involved.
G.S. 1959 Supp. 60-3203 provides that an action for wrongful death must be brought within two years.
*622 G.S. 1959 Supp. 44-504 provides that the action must be prosecuted by the dependents of a deceased workman within eighteen months from the date of the fatal injury, and that failure to do so operates as an assignment to the employer of the cause of action in tort, and that such employer may enforce the same in his own name or in the name of the dependents or personal representatives for their benefit as their interest may appear.
When this action was filed plaintiff widow (a dependent) had long since been barred by the eighteen-month provision from maintaining it. It could have been filed on that date by her deceased husband's employer, but neither the employer nor its insurance carrier (G.S. 1949, 44-532) saw fit to do so. They were not even injected into the case until defendants' answer was filed, long after the two-year statute had fallen. The second amended petition  filed still later  was not brought by the employer in its own name or in the name of the dependents as their interest may appear, but was brought by plaintiff widow (a dependent) on behalf of herself, her minor children, her deceased husband's employer and its insurance carrier as their interest may appear  thus clearly distinguishing it from the Sundgren case.
Whitaker v. Douglas, 179 Kan. 64, 292 P.2d 688, was a case where the workman was injured, rather than killed, as here, but the principle involved was the same. It was held that one who attempts to proceed under 44-504 must act within the time provided in that section, and in the course of the opinion it was said:
It is quite true that in the present case the petition was amended  but such was done long after the running of the two-year statute  and, as heretofore stated, was not in compliance with 44-504.
In Elam v. Bruenger, 165 Kan. 31, 193 P.2d 225, which was a death case, it was said, in reference to 44-504:
I realize fully that courts are properly committed to a liberal interpretation of the provisions of the compensation act so as to prevent injustices to injured workmen or their dependents, but in my opinion such liberal construction should not be extended so as to do violence to the plain wording of a statute.
For the reasons stated I respectfully dissent.