Court Opinion

ID: 9448561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:40:05.281875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:29.183367
License: Public Domain

JOHNSEN, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I regret to have to dissent from the court’s decision, but I am unable to satisfy myself that the trial court’s determination of the question of Nebraska law involved is entitled to be held to be clearly erroneous.
I may state my agreement that the view which the court feels should have *682been taken on the amendment question represents the more salutary and the majority rule, as a legal principle. I further would agree that, in actions other than ones under the wrongful death statute, the Nebraska courts are entitled to be regarded as being liberal in allowing amendments as to party plaintiffs (and otherwise), such as they did in State Bank of Gothenburg v. Carroll, 81 Neb. 484, 118 N.W. 276, and such as we permitted the State of Nebraska to make for its own benefit in McDonald v. Nebraska, 8 Cir., 101 F. 171.
But this does not entitle it to be held, as against the positive manifestations which seem to me to exist to the contrary in its decisions, that Nebraska therefore should be regarded as taking a similar position in respect to actions under its Lord Campbell’s Act. It must be recognized that, as to actions under a Lord Campbell’s Act, there is a hard-core minority rule, that an amendment of a complaint, changing the status of the plaintiff from an individual to a representative capacity, is a substantive change and is therefore in its effect the commencement of a new action, so that it cannot be made without letting in the statute of limitations. See generally 16 Am.Jur., Death, § 291.
The basis for this rule is the concept that a Lord Campbell’s Act should be given a strict construction, and that thus the manner in which a suit under it is required to be brought and the time within which it must be instituted are substantive aspects or conditions of the right granted, so that, unless these conditions have been complied with, no cause of action has been brought before the court.
Such indications and expressions as can be found in the decisions of the Nebraska Supreme Court in relation to the Act seem to me to suggest its acceptance of and adherence to this minority view.
Thus, in Gengo v. Mardis, 103 Neb. 164, 170 N.W. 841, 8 A.L.R. 134, the court held that the two-year limitation for bringing an action under the Act was “absolute” and constituted “a condition precedent”, so that the general statutory provision for tolling the State’s regular statutes of limitations, “when the party wanted places himself without the jurisdiction of the court, absconds, or stays in hiding so that service cannot be had upon him”, could have no application. 103 Neb. at p. 166, 170 N.W. at p. 841.
Again, in Swift v. Sarpy County, 102 Neb. 378, 167 N.W. 458, where the trial' court had sustained a demurrer to a petition by a husband for damages from the death of his wife, and had made dismissal of the action, the Nebraska Supreme Court said: “The demurrer to the petition was properly sustained”, and “Such actions must be brought in the name of administrator of the estate of the deceased”. 102 Neb. at p. 381, 167 N.W. at p. 459. It will be noted that the judicial action taken was that of dismissal, without the situation apparently being left open for the husband to qualify as administrator and make amendment of his petiton, as in the interest of justice the majority rule would perhaps imply ought to be done.
Further, in Wilson v. Bumstead, 12 Neb. 1, 10 N.W. 411, where a dismissal made in such a situation similarly was affirmed, the court said that the requirement that the action must be brought by the personal representative constituted a condition upon which the right to maintain the action rests and pointed out that the very purpose of the condition doubtless was to prevent the next of kin from instituting any suits, so as to escape the possibility and complications of a multiplicity, such as might otherwise come to exist. 12 Neb. at p. 4, 10 N.W. 411.
Finally, in Luckey v. Union Pacific R. Co., 117 Neb. 85, 219 N.W. 802, the court again made emphasis of the provision in the Act that an action for the death of a person “shall be brought by and in the name of his personal representative” and declared that “No one else is authorized to bring the action”. 117 Neb. at p. 91, 219 N.W. at p. 804. It held that a subsequently enacted Workmen’s Compensa*683tion Law therefore was without effect upon this condition of the Act, in the provision of such compensation law for the subrogation of an employer to the rights of the dependents of an employee in a death case and for recovery by the employer of “any amount which such * * * dependents would have been entitled to recover”.
These indications and expressions seem to me to be such as to warrant the trial court in reaching the conclusion that it did. I think the situation manifestly falls within our oft proclaimed declaration that the determination made by a district judge as to a question of unsettled local law in his state will be accepted by us, unless it can be said to represent an impermissible conclusion on the elements of manifestation and appraisal which he was entitled to take into account.
That declaration has in substance been made more frequently in our opinions than in those of any other circuit. Indeed, I am not sure, from the number of repetitions of it in which we have engaged, but that we may appear to have almost made a fetish of it. Be that as it may, however, unless the principle is to be departed from or diluted here, I think it requires ah affirmance instead of a reversal of the judgment in the present situation.
As a matter of fact, I should have to say that, on the basis of the indications and expressions which I have set out, I would have felt obliged to decide the matter as the trial court did. It may be that, in the modern spirit and tendency of drawing a more liberal line between procedure and substance, the Nebraska Supreme Court might see fit to adopt the majority rule, should the question now come before it. But the expressions of the court which I have set out will not permit us here to so hold, for it is not for us to try to formulate or channel the legal mind of the State. Yoder v. NuEnamel Corp., 8 Cir., 117 F.2d 488.
I would accordingly affirm.