Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/264/348.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 21:26:04+00:00

Document:
[264 U.S. 348, 349] Messrs. R. O. Brennan and Edgar W. Camp, both of Los Angeles, Cal., and Gardiner Lathrop, of Chicago, Ill., for petitioner.
Messrs. M. K. Young and Lyndol L. Young, both of Los Angeles, Cal., for respondent.
Action for personal injuries received by Nichols' wife while a passenger on a train of petitioner in New Mexico. The injuries resulted in death. The action was brought in one of the superior courts of the state of California, and removed on petition of petitioner to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Southern Division.
The amount sued for was $35,586.42, being composed of the elements of $ 15,000 for the loss of services and advice of the wife, $20,000 for the loss of her society, love, and affection, and $586.42 for various specified services. [264 U.S. 348, 350] Judgment was rendered for petitioner, with costs. It was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, with directions to enter judgment for Nichols in the sum of $5,000.
For this were adduced Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.S. 657 , 13 Sup. Ct. 224; Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U.S. 11 ; Texas & Pacific Railway v. Cox, 145 U.S. 593 , 12 Sup. Ct. 905.
The reasoning of the court is very complete, with the pertinence of cases, and it has the supplement of a number of state rulings which the Circuit Court of Appeals has adduced.
The law of New Mexico is within the principle and description of those rulings, and of Huntington v. Attrill. It is in reparation of a private injury, not in punishment of 'an offense against the public justice of the state.' Its reparation is in a fixed amount, it is true, but it is in an amount that has been fixed by a consideration of the determining factors, they necessarily having a certain similarity in all cases. It was the legislative judgment, therefore, that the interests of the state would best be served by an exact definition of the measure of responsibility and relief when the circumstances were such as are represented in the law. It is not less reparative because so defined. [264 U.S. 348, 352] Against this conclusion an argument can be opposed, and is opposed- one not without strength and the support of cases. We are unable to yield to it. We repeat, we think the motive and effect of the law is not punishment in the sense of a penal law, but remuneration-'damages for a civil injury.' And a peculiar injury, one resulting from death and its deprivations-deprivations difficult to estimate (and which the common law did not estimate in individual injury and redress), and, therefore, we think properly within the power of the state-its power to make provision for the controversies and rights that may grow out of the relations of its people.
The contention of petitioner is, as we understand it, not that damages in redress of death are opposed to the policy of California, but only when damages are given in a fixed amount as provided by the law of New Mexico, the Code of Civil Procedure of the state giving such damages only 'as under all the circumstances of the case may be just,'1 therefore, confining the damages to compensation for pecuniary loss suffered by surviving relatives of the deceased. This may be conceded; there is nothing in the law of New Mexico that transcends the purpose. It does not preclude the recovery of damages; it only defines them, recognizing, as the Supreme Court of California has recognized, the incapability of precise accuracy being attained either by court or jury of the damages that may result from the death of a person to surviving relatives. Redfield v. Oakland C. S. [264 U.S. 348, 353] Ry. Co., 110 Cal. 277, 285, 42 Pac. 822, 1063. See, also, Ryan v. North Alaska Salmon Co., 153 Cal. 438, 95 Pac. 862.
We do not regard, therefore, the Code of the state as expressing the policy of the state to be that the aid of its courts and of the federal courts sitting in the state are to be denied the power to enforce the redress given by the law of the state where the injury was inflicted, the law not being penal.
[ Footnote 1 ] "Sec. 377. When the Death of a person not being a minor is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, his heirs or personal representatives may maintain an action for damages against the person causing the death, or if such person be employed by another person who is responsible for his conduct, then also against such other person. In every action under this and the preceding section, such damages may be given as under all the circumstances of case may be just."

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