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Timestamp: 2019-04-26 15:50:09+00:00

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BOOTT MILLS vs. BOSTON AND MAINE RAILROAD.
Present: RUGG, C. J., HAMMOND, TARING, BRALEY, SHELDON, DE COURCY & CROSBY, JJ.
Negligence, Employer's liability, Causing death. Joint Tortfeasors.
The damages recoverable from an employer under the provisions of the employers' liability act contained in St. 1909, c. 514, s.s. 128-131, for causing the death of an employee are punitive and not compensatory in character, being required to "be assessed with reference to the degree of culpability of the employer or of the person for whose negligence the employer is liable," and consequently an employer, who has incurred the punishment of paying the amount of a judgment against him for causing the death of an employee, cannot recover the whole or any part of the damages thus paid by him from another person who contributed to the wrongful conduct on which the judgment was founded; because the amount which the employer paid was the proportion assessable to his own wrong and nothing more.
In the present case the principle stated above was applied to an action by a mill corporation against a railroad corporation to recover the amount of a judgment paid by the plaintiff for causing the death of an employee by reason of a defect in a coal car that had been delivered to the plaintiff by the defendant in a defective condition.
The exception, to the rule that there can be no contribution between joint tortfeasors, which permits a recovery where the plaintiff acted in good faith and did not participate in the defendant's wrongful conduct, does not apply to an action by a mill corporation against a railroad corporation to recover the amount awarded for conscious suffering in a judgment paid by the plaintiff in an action against him under St. 1909, c. 514, s. 128, for alleged negligence that caused conscious suffering of an employee preceding his death, in which damages were awarded for the death as well as for the conscious suffering; because under the statute there could have been no recovery against the plaintiff of substantial damages for the death unless there had been some degree of direct culpability on his part.
RUGG, C.J. This is an action in tort or contract which comes before us on report from a judge of the Superior Court, [Note p582] who overruled the defendant's demurrer to the plaintiff's declaration.
knowing that the plaintiff in the ordinary course of its business would move the car by horses on tracks upon its premises, there unload and return it to the defendant; that the car was in a defective condition, whereby, while the plaintiff was causing the car to be moved with due care, one of its employees was injured, whose administrator recovered and collected a judgment against it for his conscious suffering, due notice of that action having been given to the defendant. The third count, which is in contract, sets forth the same facts with an averment that the defendant impliedly represented and agreed that the car was safe to be moved and unloaded in the manner undertaken by the plaintiff.
Counts 2 and 4 of the declaration aver in substance that by reason of the same negligent conduct of the defendant the plaintiff has been compelled to pay a judgment recovered against it by the administrator of its employee for his death by virtue of St. 1909, c. 514, s. s. 128-131.
1. Counts 2 and 4 are dealt with first. They relate to recovery for death under the employers' liability act. According to its provisions, when an injury due to the tortious conduct of the employer or those for whom he is responsible results in the death of an employee, damages in a sum not less than $500 nor more than $5,000 to "be assessed with reference to the degree of culpability of the employer or of the person for whose negligence the employer is liable" may be recovered against the employer. So far as damages are recovered for death under this statute, they are to be paid to the widow, if there is one; if there is none, to the employee's next of kin.
than $10,000 also to "be assessed with reference to the degree of culpability of the corporation or its servants or agents."
The nature of the liability imposed upon the plaintiff by the judgment recovered against it for $3,300, based upon its negligence in causing the death of its employee, must be considered.
faculties. The cause of action does not arise until his death. Bowes v. Boston, 155 Mass. 344, 349. Merrill v. Eastern Railroad, 139 Mass. 252, 257. Church v. Boylston & Woodbury Cafe Co. ante, 231.
A reference to a few other of our cases makes plain the point. It was said in Carey v. Berkshire Railroad, 1 Cush. 475, 480, respecting the railroad statute, that the penalty "is doubtless to be greater or smaller, within the prescribed maximum and minimum, according to the degree of blame which attaches to the defendants, and not according to the loss sustained by the widow and heirs of the deceased." This language has been quoted or referred to with approval, or the principle followed, in many subsequent cases: Commonwealth v. Boston & Lowell Railroad, 134 Mass. 211, 213; Commonwealth v. Eastern Railroad, 5 Gray 473; Kelley v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 135 Mass. 448; Littlejohn v. Fitchburg Railroad, 148 Mass. 478; Commonwealth v. Boston & Albany Railroad, 121 Mass. 36; Merrill v. Eastern Railroad, 139 Mass. 252; Cripps's Case, 216 Mass. 586, 588, 589; Wiemert v. Boston Elevated Railway, 216 Mass. 598, 602. In Doyle v. Fitchburg Railroad, 162 Mass. 66, 71, it was said respecting a kindred statute where substantially the same language was used, that the remedy "is in substance a penalty;" and in Littlejohn v. Fitchburg Railroad, 148 Mass. 478, 482, that it was "penal in its character;" in Jones v. Boston & Northern Street Railway, 205 Mass. 108, 109, as being "of a penal nature;" in Renaud v. New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad, 210 Mass. 553, 557, it was referred to as "a penal statute to punish the railroad for causing through negligence the death of a passenger." In Brown v. Thayer, 212 Mass. 392, 399, it was said, "The statute may be designated as remedial for the reason that a remedy is provided where before its enactment none existed. But the damages assessed are distinctly grounded upon the defendant's culpable misconduct and are diminished or enhanced according to the degree of his delinquency."
by negligence. The amount of damages recoverable under all the statutes is to be assessed in exactly the same way. The sum recovered under all the statutes is paid, not for the benefit of the estate of the deceased, but to some of his family. That the general death statute, R. L. c. 171, s. 2, as amended by St. 1907, c. 375, is a punitive statute seems to be settled by Brown v. Thayer, 212 Mass. 392, where it was said that that "statute . . . recognizes the punitive nature of the civil remedy by requiring the assessment of damages to be 'with reference to the degree of .. . culpability.'"
degree of the culpability of the wrongdoer, they are imposed as a punishment. Under these circumstances, it must be held that the statutes are the same in the general characteristic of being punitive rather than compensatory.
establish a case on the part of the plaintiff, and however heavy or light may be the burden of proof resting upon him, when once his case is established, the amount of damages to be recovered, which is another way of describing the punishment to be meted out to the defendant, must be ascertained in the same uniform way. It always is determined with reference to the degree of his culpability. In effect it is a punishment by the imposition of that which in substance is a fine and not the payment of a simple civil obligation. Under statutes where the relief afforded was by indictment alone, it is easy to see that the money received by the family of the deceased was a gratuity from the government derived from the fine imposed upon the one negligently causing the death. In this Commonwealth there is no such thing known to the common law as the recovery of punitive damages in addition to compensatory damages. Ellis v. Brockton Publishing Co. 198 Mass. 538. It is only by express statute that such damages may be awarded. But, although the employers' liability act is unusual in combining in one statute and by one action the recovery of damages for conscious suffering which,, are compensatory, and damages for death which is to be assessed with reference to the degree of culpability of the wrongdoer, and in making the establishment of the plaintiff's case upon each branch dependent upon ordinary liability of the employer as fixed by the act, yet there is no difficulty in separating these two elements and holding the one to be compensatory and the other to be punitive. In an action for death under the employers' liability act, the degree and elements of proof resting upon the plaintiff are those fixed by that statute, but the amount to be paid by the defendant is found by the application of the rule phrased in words identical to all death statutes. When the Legislature has used these same words in so many different statutes, the conclusion hardly can be escaped that it used them with the same purpose and intent and as expressive of the same policy. This conclusion gains added force in view of the numerous decisions to which reference has been made, where the court had interpreted those words and defined their scope and meaning.
word "damages" was substituted for it in R. L. c. 106, s. 74, and subsequent re-enactments. The decisive words which determine the character of the relief afforded as being punitive and in harmony with all other statutes upon the subject are those which require the amount for which recovery may be had to "be assessed with reference to the degree of culpability of the employer."
This conclusion is re-enforced by the consideration that the maximum amount of damages recoverable under St. 1909, c. 514, s.s. 128-131 (under which the plaintiff has been found liable to the original plaintiff) is only $5,000, payable to the widow of the deceased or, if there is no widow, to his dependent next of kin; while under St. 1906, c. 463, Part I, s. 63, as amended by St. 1907, c. 392 (under which the defendant was found liable to the original plaintiff) the maximum amount of damages recoverable is $10,000, to be paid "one half thereof to the use of the widow and one half to the use of the children of the deceased; or, if there are no children, the whole to the use of the widow; or, if there is no widow, the whole to the use of the next of kin." The Legislature thus has imposed a different measure of damages upon the two classes of defendants and has provided for the distribution of the amount recovered amongst different persons.
Appropriate instructions in the action of D'Almeida against the present plaintiff would have been in substance to the effect that the wrongful conduct of the Boott Mills was the limit of its responsibility, and that if the course of business between it and the railroad company had been such that the Boott Mills as a reasonable person had a right to rely wholly upon the railroad's care and inspection of the car and to receive and use it in the limited way in which it did without any inspection on its own part, and if such conduct was justified by the knowledge which the railroad had of the method of the Boott Mills in doing its business, and if the inspection and care which the railroad ought to make of its car before delivering it to the mills, was such as warranted the mills in relying implicitly upon that care and inspection, then the Boott Mills might have been found guilty of no culpability.
bility as used in these statutes has been substantially settled in the cases heretofore cited and especially in Hudson v. Lynn & Boston Railroad, 185 Mass. 510. If the Boott Mills without fault on its part had been exposed to legal liability through the negligence of the railroad, no verdict for $3,300 against it could have been recovered. The liability of the mill corporation to the administrator of its employee depended upon the rules established in the employers' liability act. But the amount of damages depended solely upon the degree of culpability or guilt on the part of the mill corporation. If the Boott Mills without moral delinquency upon its own part had been exposed to this liability through the negligence of the railroad, no such verdict could have been recovered.
If, in the case at bar, the defendant gave to the plaintiff originally only the slightest reason to suppose that no inspection was needed on the part of the latter, then the fault of the latter would be very much greater than if the railroad company had given the mill company every reason to believe that no inspection was necessary. The result would be that the more careful the railroad company was to warn the mill corporation the greater would be the sum it would have to pay (if an action like the one at bar can be maintained), because the greater would be the culpability of the mill corporation. In other words, the liability of the railroad to the mill corporation would be in an inverse ratio to the care the railroad corporation showed to the mill corporation.
opinion. The idea of a penalty or punishment excludes liability on the part of anybody except the wrongdoer.
There is nothing contrary to this result in D'Almeida v. Boott Mills and D'Almeida v. Boston, & Maine Railroad, 209 Mass. 81. In both those actions the plaintiff prevailed, having recovered substantial verdicts in the Superior Court, and the cases were brought here solely on the exceptions of each defendant. One of the requests for rulings presented by the Boston and Maine Railroad was, "The Boott Mills and the Boston and Maine Railroad cannot be held liable on the evidence as joint tortfeasors." Exception was taken by the Boston and Maine Railroad to the denial of that request and to "that part of the charge in which the jury were instructed that they could find against both defendants." Plainly the plaintiff could have maintained his action against each of the defendants in those cases. In the sense that the Boott Mills and the Boston and Maine Railroad each contributed to a wrong to the plaintiff, it might be that such participation constituted a joint tort. But the question did not arise in those cases whether a joint action could have been maintained for the recovery of the penalty to which each defendant was liable for participating in the wrong which caused the death. That question arose in Brown v. Thayer, 212 Mass. 392, where it was held that under such circumstances and by reason of the statutes no joint action could be maintained. No question arose in D'Almeida v. Boott Mills and D'Almeida v. Boston & Maine Railroad as to satisfying judgments against both defendants for the death. It was not necessary to discuss the point here raised because it was not then before the court. Indeed, the reference to "one satisfaction in damages," which occurs in that opinion, was an obiter dictum because that point was not before the court. Whether it was correct is not now before the court. If it is inconsistent with the reasoning of the present opinion, to that extent it is not followed.
It is not necessary to decide whether this kind of action is penal in the international sense, as are cases where the Commonwealth alone institutes and prosecutes an action and receives the benefit of the fine. See Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657; Boston & Maine Railroad v. Hurd, 108 Fed. Rep. 116; Cristilly v. Warner, 87 Conn. 461, 466. That point is left open.
extensive citation of authorities, that one of several wrongdoers cannot recover either proportionally or wholly from another wrongdoer, although he may have been compelled to pay all the damages for the wrong done. Union Stock Yards Co. v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 196 U. S. 217, 224. Old Dominion Copper Mining & Smelting Co. v. Bigelow, 203 Mass. 159, 217. Old Colony Street Railway v. Brockton & Plymouth Street Railway, ante, 84.
The exception to this rule established by Lowell v. Boston & Lowell Railroad, 23 Pick. 24, Gray v. Boston Gas Light Co. 114 Mass. 149, and Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co. v. Kendall, 178 Mass. 232, permits recovery over where the tortfeasor seeking contribution from another tortfeasor as between the two is free from moral delinquency, and where damages have been assessed with reference to the injuries done to the original plaintiff by the wrong to which all the joint wrongdoers have contributed. That is a plain and simple exception to a general rule. It is easily understood and applied. To extend the exception to cases where the greater the culpability of the delinquent seeking contribution, the greater is the sum the codelinquent shall be compelled to pay, and where the degree of culpability of the former may be in inverse ratio to the culpability of the latter, would go far toward breaking down the rule and finds no justification in any sound principle of law and would lead to many cases of manifest injustice.
the original plaintiff against the present plaintiff, being under a penal statute, there can be no recovery over.
The plaintiff relies upon the well recognized exception to the general rule that there can be no contribution between joint tortfeasors, to the effect that a plaintiff may recover over against other joint tortfeasors, where, although he has been negligent as to third persons in failing to perform a duty cast on him by law, he nevertheless has acted in good faith and has not participated in any wrongful conduct, has shown all the caution which the defendant had a right to expect of him, and has relied upon the defendant to perform his active legal duty of due care, whose decisive and definite act of failure in this respect has exposed the plaintiff to liability to a third person arising from inference of law, without moral guilt on the plaintiff's part and without his sharing in the wrongful cause of the injury. It relies upon this branch of the case on Jacobs v. Pollard, 10 Cush. 287, 289, Lowell v. Boston & Lowell Railroad, 23 Pick. 24, 32, Gray v. Boston Gas Light Co. 114 Mass. 149, Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co. v. Kendall, 178 Mass. 232. It is manifest, however, from the allegations of the plaintiff's declaration, that this principle cannot apply, because judgment has been recovered against it for causing the death of its employee, which could only have been assessed in the substantial amount alleged by reason of some degree of direct culpability on its part. For the reasons pointed out in the earlier part of this opinion, such a verdict for that cause could not have been recovered against the plaintiff if, as between it and the present defendant, it was free from any wrongdoing. It follows that the principle which the plaintiff invokes as the ground of its right to recover has no application to the facts disclosed by its declaration.
The case was argued at the bar in March, 1914, before Rugg, C. J., Loring, Braley, Sheldon, & Crosby, JJ., and afterwards was submitted on briefs to all the justices.
F. N. Wier, (J. M. O'Donoghue with him,) for the defendant.
F. E. Dunbar, (A.'C. Spalding with him,) for the plaintiff.

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