Court Opinion

ID: 9863188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:11:01.771519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:47:53.239574
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, J., dissenting. Today’s decision is obviously unjust, but my disagreement is based not on abstract justice but on the fact that the majority’s unfortunate conclusion can be reached only by putting form above substance. There is nothing in either the statute or our decisions that requires us to go that far. It is of course true that the statute requires an action for wrongful death to be brought in the name of the personal representative when one has been appointed, and our cases have uniformly enforced this requirement. But the personal representative is not the real party in interest. The recovery does not become an asset of the estate; instead, the administrator holds it as a trustee for the statutory beneficiaries. Davis v. Railway, 53 Ark. 117, 13 S. W. 801, 7 L. R. A. 283. For that reason we have characterized the personal representative as “a formal party” to the action, “a mere trustee.” Adams v. Shell, 182 Ark. 959, 33 S. W. 2d 1107. With the exception of today’s decision we have in every case recognized the beneficiaries as the real plaintiffs when that question was important. Even though the administrator is the sole plaintiff we have held that he is not even a party within the dead man’s statute and so may testify about personal transactions with the decedent. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Jenkins, 183 Ark. 1071, 40 S. W. 2d 439. Again, it is not the administrator’s contributory negligence but that of the real plaintiff that bars recovery. St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Dawson, 68 Ark. 1, 56 S. W. 46. Even more important, the measure of the administrator’s recoverable damages is wholly dependent upon the identity of the heirs. If the only heirs were distant kin not dependent upon the decedent for support the administrator could recover only nominal damages, for the legal injury is not to the person killed but to those who survive. Consequently the jury may consider the pecuniary loss sustained by each of the statutory beneficiaries, even though the recovery is divided under the statute of descent and distribution rather than according to their individual deserts. Jenkins v. Midland Valley R. Co., 134 Ark. 1, 203 S. W. 1; Railway Co. v. Sweet, 60 Ark. 550, 31 S. W. 571. Thus the personal representative is a party only in the sense that the statute requires his name to appear in the complaint. He cannot even state a cause of action without giving the names of the true plaintiffs, for it is their right of action that he enforces. In this case the administrator asserted a wholly non-existent cause of action — an injury to Reed’s father, who as a matter of law had no right of action whatever. Yet the court now says that Reed’s widow and infant child were represented in that case, even though proof of their existence was not made. As the court said in an analogous situation in Atlantic Greyhound Lines, Inc., v. Keesee, 72 App. D. C. 45, 111 F. 2d 657; “The fact remains that [the administrator] . . . did not sue as a trustee for [the widow]. He sued as trustee for other relatives, including himself, on the theory that she was disqualified by desertion to share in the proceeds of recovery. His suit was in denial, not in affirmation of her rights. He could not at the same time represent her and refrain from presenting any claim which would permit the jury to ‘direct’ that any portion of the judgment be ‘distributed’ to her. To hold otherwise would allow her only the form and deny her the substance of representation. The substance, not the form, is controlling.” Perhaps the majority’s conclusion could be justified if there were any strong ground of public policy supporting the result reached, but there is none. The decision accomplishes one thing and one thing only; it enables a tortfeasor who has wrongfully caused another person’s death to pay a consent judgment to the personal representative without making the slightest investigation to determine whether the persons really injured are even represented. I can think of no other situation in the law in which the defendant is relieved of all responsibility for determining whether he has been sued by the right person. It is nothing new for a wrongdoer to have to pay twice; the law merely says that his payment to the wrong person did not extinguish the real cause of action. On what ground of policy should we follow a different rule when the tortfeasor is guilty of the most serious wrong that can be committed? Under this very death statute we have held that when some of the heirs bring suit without a personal representative having been appointed, the judgment is not res judicata as to another heir who was not joined as a plaintiff. Thompson v. Southern Lbr. Co. 113 Ark. 380, 168 S. W. 1068. Of course that decision is not controlling here, but it is the most closely analogous case in our reports and points the way to the correct decision in the case at bar. The majority offer this widow and child the empty comfort of what will doubtless prove to be a fruitless suit against the administrator, for a maximum sum that bears no relation to the injury suffered by these plaintiffs. If reasons of policy are to control, I think it plain that it is the defendant who should be required to seek to recover the payment that resulted entirely from his negligence and through no fault of these appellants.