Court Opinion

ID: 9613668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:19:04.494849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:30.975289
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the majority opinion in all respects. I write separately merely to state additional reasons in support of the conclusion that damages for loss of prospective inheritance are recoverable in cases where there are statutory beneficiaries.
When the territorial death act was enacted by Congress in 1900, it said nothing about how damages should be measured. It stated only that damages should be capped at $10,000 and directed how they should be distributed. If this statute had never been amended it would be difficult to argue that loss of inheritance damages were :not recoverable, as that is the overwhelming majority rule in American jurisdictions. 3 M. Minzer, Damages in Tort Actions, § 22.22 (1991).
When the territorial legislature amended the death act in 1955, it said nothing which would take away the implied right to recover lost inheritance damages.1 The only language limiting the measure of damages— as distinct from the cap which the legislature raised from $10,000 to $50,000 — is contained in the following two sentences:
The damages recoverable under this Act shall be limited to those which are the natural and proximate consequence of the negligent or wrongful act or omission of another.
In fixing the amount of damages to be awarded under this Act, the court or jury shall consider all the facts and circumstances and from them fix the award at such sum as will fairly compensate for the injury resulting from the death.
The general standards expressed in this language are clearly broad enough to encompass lost inheritance damages. The sentence which immediately follows this language is explicitly not a limitation on these general principles. It states in part:
In determining the amount of the award, the Court or jury shall consider but is not limited to the following:
(1) Deprivation of the expectation of pecuniary benefits to the beneficiary or beneficiaries, without regard to the age thereof, that would have resulted from the continued life of the deceased and without regard to probable accumulations or what the deceased may have saved during his lifetime.
(Emphasis added.) The juxtaposition of “but is not limited to” with the “without regard to probable accumulations” phrase seems, at first glance, to be paradoxical. How can “without regard to probable accumulations” not be a limitation on the recovery of pecuniary benefits?
The most plausible explanation is that the legislature wanted to put an end to the argument that the measure of damages in cases with dependents was limited to what the probable accumulations or savings of the deceased would have been had he lived a normal life expectancy. This contention was a recurrent feature of litigation under the 1900 statute. Dralle v. Steele, 13 Alaska 680, 685 (1952) (argument rejected); Kreidler v. Ketchikan Spruce Mills, 10 Alaska 365, 367 (1943) (argument accepted); The Princess Sophia, 35 F.2d 736, 740 (W.D.Wash.1929) (applying Alaska law, argument accepted).
There were, and are, several formulas in general use for determining the loss suffered by an estate. The two most common are the net earnings method and the accumulations or savings method.2 Under the *641net earnings method, the decedent’s personal living expenses are deducted from probable future gross earnings. Personal living expenses do not include amounts that would have been spent for other family members. Minzer, supra, § 23.11; Harper and James, supra, § 25.15. The result is then reduced to present value and represents the damage award. The net earnings method ordinarily approximates that which is recovered under a loss to survivors statute where the decedent is an adult with dependents.3 Under the accumulations formula, the amount that the deceased probably would have saved during his lifetime is calculated, reduced to present worth, and awarded. The main difference between the two methods is that under the accumulations formula a deduction is made for the amounts decedent would have spent to support his dependents. Osborne v. Russell, 669 P.2d 550, 560 (Alaska 1983). Minzer, supra, § 23.11; Harper and James, supra, § 25.15.
The accumulations method has long been criticized on the ground that it fails to provide compensation for that part of a decedent’s lost future earnings that would have been paid to support his dependents. Harper and James puts it this way:
[I]t will fall far short of providing compensation to the living dependents for their loss, and this is the loss that calls loudest for redress. Moreover, the lack will prove greatest where the need is most acute — the typical case of the breadwinner who spends most of his earnings on his dependents and therefore is able to save little.
Id. at 1333.
Speiser’s comments are similar:
The net effect of the “accumulations only” approach is undesirable. The tort-feasor has deprived the decedent of his capacity to earn money which he would have contributed to his dependents and has deprived the dependents of their potential support and contributions from the decedent. But the “accumulations” theory neither recognizes this loss nor requires the tortfeasor to compensate for it.
Speiser, § 3.63 at 371. Although Harper and James was published in 1956, and. Speiser in 1975, there are numerous cases which recognized the inequity of the accumulations formula prior to 1955.4
The accumulations/net earnings dichotomy is classically present where damages are measured by the loss to the estate rather than by the losses suffered by beneficiaries. However, cases construing Alaska’s wrongful death act as of 1955 were not uniform in limiting the accumulations method to cases where the deceased had no statutory beneficiaries. In Kreidler v. Ketchikan Spruce Mills, 10 Alaska 365, 367 (Alaska 1943), and The Princess Sophia, 35 F.2d 736, 740 (W.D.Wash.1929), the decedents had beneficiaries, but the accumulations or savings method was used *642in both.5 Thus, it is not surprising to see the legislature rejecting the probable accumulations method when calculating lost benefits to a statutory beneficiary.

. The 1955 enactment is set forth in the majority opinion at footnote 14, at 633.

. We discussed the two methods in Osborne v. Russell, 669 P.2d 550, 560 (Alaska 1983). See Minzer, supra, § 23.11(1]; S. Speiser, Recovery for Wrongful Death, § 3.62 (1975); Harper and James, The Law of Torts, § 25.15 (1956). At least two states, Georgia and Kentucky, employ *641a third method, gross earnings. Minzer, supra, § 23.11[l][c].

. "This method most nearly approximates that under Lord Campbell’s Act and its progeny." Harper and James, supra, § 25.15 at 1332. “‘[T]he net income’ formula produces a recovery that most closely resembles the recovery in a 'loss to beneficiaries’ jurisdiction.” Minzer, supra, § 23.11[1] at 23-12. This method was approved as a means of determining sums available for beneficiaries in Tommy’s Elbow Room v. Kavorkian, 727 P.2d 1038, 1047 (Alaska 1986).

. E.g., Chase v. Fitzgerald, 132 Conn. 461, 45 A.2d 789 (1946); Imbriani v. Anderson, 76 N.H. 491, 84 A. 974 (1912); Carter v. North Carolina R. Co., 138 N.C. 750, 52 S.E. 642, 643-44 (1905) (the court stated in support of a net earnings method "[b]ut a small number of men accumulate estates. Their income or earnings, after paying their actual personal expenses, are expended in the support and education of their children. Certainly, it was not contemplated that for wrongfully causing the death of such a man no damage could be recovered, although his death deprives his family of their sole support, while for the death of one without any family, or who, by miserly living and hoarding, deprives his family of support and education, large damages should be awarded. It cannot, with any show of truth, be said that in the first case the family sustained no pecuniary loss by reason of the death of the husband and father. Such a construction of the statute would place beyond the protection of the law nine-tenths of the people.’’); see Annotations, 163 A.L.R. 253, 257 (1946); 26 A.L.R. 593, 595 (1923); 7 A.L.R. 1314, 1325-26 (1920).

. A particularly harsh statement was made in the Princess Sophia:
What has been said with relation to the rule of recovery forces the conclusion that under the Alaska statute increased costs of living to the widow ... comfort, love, consolation, and affection to the bereft, the financial responsibility of the petitioner, equal distribution of justice, or dictates of humanity would not warrant the court in finding a pecuniary loss where none is shown by the evidence. The court could not in good conscience say that a party 35, 40, 50, or 60 years of age, or any age, who has not shown some result of saving and saving habit and position of expectancy, in all reasonable probability, would leave an estate of present worth at the end of life expectancy. Health, earning capacity, and employment, contributions to charity, or "living well,” being a "good fellow,” without some evidence of accumulation and saving habit, does not create a presumption of itself to support such finding.
35 F.2d at 740.