Opinion ID: 1709193
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Heading: issues

Text: We next consider whether a tort action against co-employees for personal injuries survives if death results from those injuries while the action is pending. Co-employees argue that Mattison's personal injury claim was extinguished upon his death and that the only remedy is under Alabama's wrongful death statute, § 6-5-410. Co-employees reason that, because Mattison's injuries and death resulted from a job-related accident, the Alabama Workmen's Compensation Act is applicable. Accordingly, they argue, they are entitled to the statutory immunity for co-employees recognized in Slagle v. Parker, supra , and that the co-administrators have no remedy. Co-employees have misconstrued the law. At common law, personal injury actions did not survive the death of the injured party. Consequently, it was cheaper for the defendant to kill the plaintiff than to injure him, leaving the bereaved, and often financially destitute, family of the victim without a remedy. This intolerable situation was ended in England by the passage of the Fatal Accidents Act of 1846, otherwise known as Lord Campbell's Act. W. Keeton, Prosser & Keeton on The Law of Torts, § 127 at 945 (5th ed. 1984). This enactment created a new cause of action upon the death of the injured party, provided the deceased could have maintained an action before his death. Every American state now has a statutory remedy for wrongful death. Id. The purpose of Alabama's wrongful death statute, § 6-5-410, is the protection of human life and the prevention of homicides by wrongful act, omission, or negligence of persons or corporations. Breed v. Atlanta B. & C.R. Co., 241 Ala. 640, 4 So.2d 315 (1941). Another measure to correct the harsh consequences of the common law abatement of an action, upon the death of the injured party, is the survival-of-actions statute passed by the Alabama legislature. Although Alabama's original statute did not provide for the survival of personal injury actions, it was later amended to include such claims. Originally, Code 1852, § 2157; currently, Code 1975, § 6-5-462. This Court has construed the survival statute and the wrongful death statute, § 6-5-440, in pari materia. Where an individual suffers an injury from the negligence or intentional conduct of a tortfeasor, he or she has a common law action for personal injuries. If the injured person dies of a cause unrelated to the subject injuries, after filing a claim, the action can be revived by the personal representative, and damages are recoverable under the survival statute, § 6-5-462. If the plaintiff dies of his injuries, however, the remedy is under the wrongful death act, § 6-5-410. Bruce v. Collier, 221 Ala. 22, 127 So. 553 (1930); Parker v. Fies & Sons, 243 Ala. 348, 10 So.2d 13 (1942). The rationale of these cases is that, because there is a remedy under the wrongful death act, allowance of an additional personal injury action under the survival statute would work an injustice in that plaintiff would be permitted to receive a double recovery. As this Court explained in Parker, supra: The statute providing for survival of actions for `injuries to the person' does not apply to actions for injuries from wrongful injury resulting in death, with a consequent right of action under the Homicide Act. The survival statute has a field of operation in actions where death ensues from other causes. The lawmakers did not contemplate two actions by the same administrator against the same defendant for the same tort, prosecuted to separate judgments, one to recover for personal injuries for the benefit of the estate, and another for punitive damages for the benefit of next of kin. 243 Ala. at 349, 10 So.2d at 14 (emphasis added). Co-employees rely on verbiage in Price, supra, to support their contention that a personal injury action abates upon the death of the injured party (Lonnie's claim... is extinguished). Lonnie's claim, in Price, was extinguished by virtue of the wrongful death act. Because Mattison's personal representatives are denied a remedy under the wrongful death act by virtue of Slagle's interpretation of § 25-5-11, there is nothing to extinguish his pending action. Compare Elam v. Illinois Central Gulf Ry., 496 So.2d 740 (Ala.1986) (where, upon death of plaintiff, the wrongful death statute extinguished the pending personal injury claim, the prior pending claim could not be amended to state a claim for wrongful death). Thus, applying the survival statute, absent the application of the wrongful death statute, we hold that Mattison's personal injury action survives. To hold otherwise would leave Mattison's co-administrators with no remedy. It was not the legislative intent to leave an individual, injured by the negligence of another, without a remedy. Furthermore, our Constitution does not permit it. By analogy, we find the case of Gentry v. Swann Chemical Co., 234 Ala. 313, 174 So. 530 (1937), instructive on this point. In a common law action, the employee claimed damages against his employer for insidious (as opposed to accidental) personal injury suffered when he, over a number of years, inhaled the fumes and dust of trisodium phosphate, a chemical produced at the plant. The employer claimed immunity under the exclusivity provision of the Workmen's Compensation Act, while also claiming the Act did not apply to a nonaccidental injury. Although recognizing that, in general, the Workmen's Compensation Act was intended as a substitute between master and servant, for those who elect to come within its provisions, for a tort action, the Gentry Court asserted that the provisions of § 13, Constitution of Alabama 1901, controlled: However, in the light of provisions of section 13, ... it cannot be said that for an injury done a person, not within the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, that it was the legislative intent by the enactment of said law, to deny such person a remedy, if under the common law ..., or other statute he was entitled to maintain an action therefor. For the reasons expressed above, the final judgment is affirmed in part (as to the finding of a common law marriage; as to the dismissal of the wrongful death claim, and as to the allowance of the loss of consortium claim); reversed in part (as to the dismissal of the personal injury claim); and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. AS TO THE APPEAL, AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; AND REMANDED. AS TO THE CROSS-APPEAL, AFFIRMED. TORBERT, C.J., and ALMON, SHORES, ADAMS, HOUSTON and STEAGALL, JJ., concur. MADDOX, J., dissents. BEATTY, J., not sitting.