Court Opinion

ID: 9810079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:39:04.942179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:21.528726
License: Public Domain

AlleN, J.,
dissenting: I do not think there is any evidence of negligence, or that the conduct of the defendant caused the death of the plaintiff’s wife, and the evidence of damage is slight.
The wife of the plaintiff was injured in an automobile accident, and was carried to the hospital of the defendant for treatment on 18 August, 1913; she remained in the hospital until 25th September, when she returned to her husband’s home, where she remained until her death on 15th November.
It is admitted that she was skillfully treated while in the hospital of the defendant, and the only evidence of negligence is that on two occasions during a heavy rain water beat through the window onto the floor of the room where she was. The first of these occasions was about the 1st of September, and the plaintiff’s witness describes this as follows: “It was during a heavy rainstorm; the wind was blowing; while the rain was still falling and the wind still blowing they wiped it up; it stayed on the floor until we could get it up; don’t know how many minutes”; and the second by the plaintiff, who says: “That was a heavy rain that day; blew in the window; it wasn’t no hard storm; the wind was coming from the northeast; came right against that window.”
*693Tbis is an experience common to all householders, and which cannot be averted by the exercise of the greatest care. If, however, there is evidence of negligence, it is purely conjectural that this negligence had anything to do with the death of the plaintiff’s wife.
The first rain, occurring about the 1st of September, did not injure her because the plaintiff testifies that the second rain occurred on the 10th of September, and that he went back to see his wife on the 14th of September, and he says “she was looking all right up until that time that I went there; she wasn’t doing so well that day.”
According to the evidence of both witnesses who testified as to the water on the floor, the water did not reach the bed on which his wife was and it only remained upon the floor a few minutes.
The plaintiff testifies that after she went back home she was sometimes better and sometimes worse; that she did not complain of any pain in her chest until about a week before she died, and that he did not call a physician to her until Monday before her death, and this physician was not introduced as a witness.
Under these circumstances a jury could do no more than guess as to what caused the death of the plaintiff’s wife. I cannot say that there is no evidence of damage, but it is slight.
The plaintiff testifies: “She was a stout, handy woman; did her washing, her own ironing, kept up all her place, worked her garden, tended to the office some, sold the machines when I’d be away; she did the cooking and housekeeping.” This furnishes evidence that the wife was an industrious woman, who did much to maintain the plaintiff, but he is not suing to recover damages for the wrongful death for the reason that he waited more than a year before the commencement of this action, and he seeks to recover only for the loss of the services and the society of his wife.
It appears, however, that the wife who died was his second wife, and that he married her two months after his first wife died. It also appears that he married a third wife four and one-half months after the death of his second wife, and surely her society and services are a full compensation for the loss of the services and society of his second wife.