Court Opinion

ID: 9534081
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:36:43.368847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:28.337391
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Justice, Retired,
dissenting.
If stare decisis1 is a viable doctrine in Wyoming, this case should be affirmed.
Since the 1973 amendment, Wyoming’s wrongful death statute has had a tortured history. Before the 1973 amendment, the wrongful death statute provided in part:
Every such action shall be brought by, and in the name of, the personal representative of such deceased person; and the amount received in every such action shall be distributed to the parties and in the proportions provided by law, in relation to the distribution of personal estates left by persons dying intestate. In every such case, the jury shall give such damages as they shall *701deem fair and just. The court or jury may consider, as elements of damages, the amount the survivors failed or will fail, by reason of the death, to receive out of the decedent’s earnings, any other pecuniary loss directly and proximately sustained by the survivors by reason of such death including funeral expenses, and further the court or jury may add, as an element of damage, a reasonable sum for the loss of the comfort, care, advice and society of the decedent. The amount so recovered shall not be subject to any debts or liabilities of the deceased; provided, that every such action shall be commenced within two (2) years after the death of such deceased person.
W.S. 1-1066 (1957) (emphasis added).
After the 1973 amendment, the wrongful death statute provided in part:
(a) Every such action shall be brought by and in the name of the personal representative of the deceased person.
(b) If the deceased left a husband, wife, child, father or mother, no debt of the deceased may be satisfied out of the proceeds of any judgment obtained in any action brought under the provisions of this section.
(c) The court or jury, as the case may be, in every such action may award such damages, pecuniary and exemplary, as shall be deemed fair and just. Every person for whose benefit such action is brought may prove his respective damages, and the court or jury may award such person that amount of damages to which it considers such person entitled, including damages for loss of probable future companionship, society and comfort.
(d) Every such action shall be commenced within two (2) years after the death of the deceased person.
W.S. 1-38-102 (Cum.Supp.1987) (emphasis added).
In Jordan v. Delta Drilling Company, 541 P.2d 39 (1975), this court held that an acknowledged child whose parents had not been married could recover for the wrongful death of a father. With reference to the 1973 amendment to the wrongful death statute, the court said:
This amendment omitted any reference to distribution of the proceeds to survivors under the law of this state with respect to the estates of those persons dying intestate and did not restrict the action to heirs of the decedent as the original act did.
‡ * $ * # *
* * * The legislature, by amendment deleting any reference to the laws of distribution of a decedent’s estate, has eliminated any question of a relationship between heirship and entitlement to damages.
Id. at 42-43 (footnote omitted).
In Saffels v. Bennett, 630 P.2d 505 (Wyo.1981), the court held that an ex-wife could not recover for the wrongful death of her former husband. The court said:
The legislative history of § l-38-102(b) reflects the intention of the legislature to not stray from the traditional rule of beneficiary dependence to the extent propounded by appellant and suggested in the dissent hereto. As originally introduced, subsection (b) provided:
“If the deceased left a husband, wife, child, father, mother, brother, sister, or child or children of a deceased child, no debt of the deceased may be satisfied out of the proceeds of any judgment obtained in any action brought under the provisions of this section.”
The House Judiciary Committee recommended deletion of the words “brother, sister, or child or children of a deceased child,” and the bill was so amended.
The legislative intention thus expressed was to limit the recipients of benefits to be derived from the statute.
# * * * * *
“ * * * The word ‘every’ means each (individual or part) of a class or group whether definite or indefinite in number, without exception. * * * ” (Emphasis in original.) State ex rel. Pierce v. Kundert, 4 Wis.2d 392, 90 N.W.2d 628, 630 (1958).
*702«< * * * wor(j “every” emphasizes fact that all individuals of a class or group are included whether definite or indefinite in number.’ ” (Emphasis in original.) Reich v. Dietz School Dist. No., 16 of Grant County, 79 N.D. 261, 55 N.W.2d 638, 641, 642 (1952).
The words “every person” cannot be interpreted to have the effect of creating a new class of persons and a cause of action that did not previously exist. A more reasonable interpretation would seem to be that “every person” means all, each, every person within a class or group; the class or group being that class set out in the subsection. This class has heretofore had a cause of action under the Wrongful Death Act.
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The legislature did not intend to add other classifications of persons who could recover under the Wrongful Death Act when the designation “every person” was used.
Id. at 509-10 (emphasis added and footnote omitted).
In Watering v. Eisele, 682 P.2d 1055 (Wyo.1984), the court held that a brother and sisters of the decedent could participate in a wrongful death action when the decedent was survived by his father, mother, four sisters and a brother. In Wetering, the decedent was unmarried and had no children. The court, therefore, said that W.S. 2-4-101 (Cum.Supp.1983 (now Cum. Supp.1987)) determined who were the intended beneficiaries of a wrongful death action. The court stated:
[W]e hold that in adopting § l-38-102(c), W.S.1977 (Cum.Supp. 1983), the legislature did not intend to change the persons for whose benefit an action in wrongful death could be maintained. Prior to the adoption of the statute in 1973 the decedent’s heirs at law in accordance with the intestacy statutes were the intended beneficiaries of a wrongful death action. Section 1-1066, W.S.1957; Booth v. Hackney, supra; [516 P.2d 180 (Wyo.1973) ] Muir v. Haggerty, 77 Wyo. 280, 314 P.2d 948 (1957); Coliseum Motor Co. v. Hester, supra, [43 Wyo. 298] 3 P.2d [105] at 112 [1931]; and Tuttle v. Short, supra [42 Wyo. 1, 288 P. 524 (1930)]. Since no provision which has the effect of adjusting that rule can be found in the statute, the reference to every person for whose benefit such action is brought must continue to invoke the intestacy provisions of the probate code. The applicable provision in this instance is found in § 2-4-101, W.S.1977 (Cum. Supp.1983), as follows:
“(c) Except in cases above enumerated, the estate of any intestate shall descend and be distributed as follows:
* * * * * *
“(ii) If there are no children, nor their descendents, then to his father, mother, brothers and sisters, and to the descendents of brothers and sisters who are dead, the descendents collectively taking the share which their parents would have taken if living, in equal parts.”
We now hold that the persons for whose benefit the action is brought are identified in the quoted provision of § 2-4-101, W.S.1977 (Cum.Supp.1983). This does include the surviving brother and sisters in this instance because the decedent did not leave a wife or children surviving.2
*703Wetering, 682 P.2d at 1061-62 (emphasis added).
Wetering clearly says that the intended beneficiaries in wrongful death actions are determined with reference to the intestacy law as set out in W.S. 2-4-101 (Cum.Supp. 1983, now Cum.Supp.1987). In that case, since the decedent left no spouse or children, W.S. 2 — 4—101(c)(ii) kicked in and the intended beneficiaries were the father, mother, brothers and sisters.
In the case before us, the decedent was survived by a child. Therefore, W.S. 2-4-101(c)(i) should apply and the other provisions of W.S. 2-4-101 are not applicable. The scholarly and distinguished district judge disagreed with Saffels and Wetering but felt compelled by stare decisis to follow those cases. He ruled, therefore, that the child of the decedent was the sole heir and, in these circumstances, the only intended beneficiary of the wrongful death action. The district court’s ruling is not only consistent with Saffels and Wetering, but stare decisis mandated such a ruling.
The majority now says that the intended beneficiaries in a wrongful death action are not limited by the intestacy provisions of the probate code and now encompass all those identified in W.S. 2-4-101, which, I assume, includes remote relatives provided for in subsection W.S. 2 — 4—101(c)(iii).
The holding here is contrary to Weter-ing, and the majority should say so and specifically overrule Wetering rather than say that the district judge may have been mislead by dicta.
A statement of the law that conflicts with the view of a judge or an attorney may be decisive unless it can be avoided. Labeling the statement a dictum is one simple means of evasion * * *.
Comment, Dictum Revisited, 4 Stan.L.Rev. 509 (1952).
The rule on intended beneficiaries in a wrongful death action has been changed by the majority opinion. I cannot say that the court’s present interpretation of the wrongful death statute is irrational. In fairness, however, to lawyers who have advised clients and judges who have relied on Saf-fels and Wetering, the rule in this case should be made prospective.
However, I would affirm the case on the basis of stare decisis.

. Black’s Law Dictionary 1261 (5th ed. 1979) defines stare decisis as:
To abide by, or adhere to, decided cases.
Policy of courts to stand by precedent and not to disturb settled point. Neff v. George, [1936] 364 Ill. 306, 4 N.E.2d 388, 390, 391. Doctrine that, when court has once laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle, and apply it to all future cases, where facts are substantially the same; regardless of whether the parties and property are the same. Horne v. Moody, Tex.Civ.App. [1940], 146 S.W.2d 505, 509, 510.

. W.S. 2-4-101 (Cum.Supp. 1987) (emphasis added) sets out the rule of descent as follows:
(a) Whenever any person having title to any real or personal property having the nature or legal character of real estate or personal estate undisposed of, and not otherwise limited by marriage settlement, dies intestate, the estate, shall descend and be distributed in parcenary to his kindred, male and female, subject to the payment of his debts, in the following course and manner:
(i) If the intestate leaves husband or wife and children, or the descendents of any children surviving, one-half (½) of the estate shall descend to the surviving husband or wife, and the residue thereof to the surviving children and descendents of children, as hereinafter limited;

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(c) Except in cases above enumerated, the estate of any intestate shall descend and be distributed as follows:
*703(i) To his children surviving, and the descendents of his children who are dead, the descendents collectively taking the share which their parents would have taken if living;
(ii) If there are no children, nor their descendents, then to his father, mother, brothers and sisters, and to the descendents of brothers and sisters who are dead, the descendents collectively taking the share which their parents would have taken if living, in equal parts;
(iii)If there are no children nor their descendents, nor father, mother, brothers, sisters, nor descendents of deceased brothers and sisters, nor husband nor wife, living, then to the grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts and their descendents, the descendents taking collectively, the share of their immediate ancestors, in equal parts.