Opinion ID: 884422
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Did the District Court err in submitting the Starkenburg survival action to the jury and in instructing the jury thereon?

Text: A cause of action which exists during a person's lifetime survives upon his or her death. See § 27-1-501, MCA; Swanson v. Champion Int'l Corp. (1982), 197 Mont. 509, 515, 646 P.2d 1166, 1169. As a corollary, the decedent's cause of action, commonly called a survival action, cannot be pursued if the decedent's death was instantaneous. Swanson, 646 P.2d at 1169; see also Burns v. Fisher (1957), 132 Mont. 26, 30, 313 P.2d 1044, 1047. [Where there] is not any appreciable length of time between the wrong and the death, or, in other words, the wrong and the death being coincident in point of time, the instant the wrong is committed the victim of the wrong has ceased to exist, [then] it seems impossible that there is any cause of action in favor of such victim. This conclusion seems inevitable when the elements which are to be considered in determining the measure of damages are taken into account. Dillon v. Great N. Ry. Co. (1909), 38 Mont. 485, 496, 100 P. 960, 963. The personal representative of the decedent's estate may pursue a survival action on behalf of the decedent's estate and all damages recoverable in such an action are personal to the decedent. Swanson, 646 P.2d at 1169. The plaintiff in a survival action has the burden of proving that the death was not instantaneous ( see Burns, 313 P.2d at 1047), or, in other words, that the decedent survived the injury for an appreciable amount of time ( see Dillon, 100 P. at 963). [A]n appreciable amount of time can be as short as a few seconds. See Stephens v. Brown (1972), 160 Mont. 453, 460, 503 P.2d 667, 670-71.