Court Opinion

ID: 9809672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:20:49.460413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:13.204127
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
concurring in result. The opinion of the court holds, quoting Rodgers’ Domestic Relations, Sec. 839— “It is not necessary in order for a parent to maintain an action for seduction of his daughter, that he prove actual services or the loss thereof.” There are-numerous authorities to maintain that proposition. It follows therefore that under our Code, Sec. 233 (2), loss of services need not be averred, except when such loss is an element of damages. That section provides that the complaint shall contain “a plain and concise statement of the facts constituting a cause of actionf’ hence none other should be stated. Nothing now needs to be averred which it is not necessary to' prove. It can serve no purpose to make an unnecessary or untrue averment in any pleading under The Code and a fortiori it can not be a fatal defect to fail to make such averment. .
The whole subject is summed up with full citation of authorities in the American & English Encyclopedia in the article “Seduction.” It appears therefrom that the real causes of action when brought by a father for the seduction of his daughter are the wrong and injury done him in the ruin of his daughter, his wounded feelings and sense of dishonor, the stain and grief brought upon his family; and the *623jury can add exemplary damages as punishment to the defendant. Of course, in addition there can be compensation for loss of services, if any. The matter is thus summed up in a review of many authorities, but is stated in none better than in Russell v. Chambers, 31 Minn., 54: “As to the damages the parent may recover the loss of service is a comparatively unimportant part, and he is entitled to recover for his wounded feelings and sense of dishonor, loss of the society of a virtuous daughter, and in short, all that a father can feel from the nature of the loss.” In Lawyer v. Fritcher, 54 Hun, 591; 7 N. Y. Supp., 912, Landon, J., says: “This artifice is properlv termed a legal fiction, the real ground of recovery being for damages for the outrage perpetrated.”
So entirely is it an action for punitive damages, for the tort, the wrong and injury and humiliation inflicted, that it is said in Morgan v. Rose, 74 Mo., 318: “It is believed that no case can be found in the boohs where the verdict in an action like this has been set aside upon the sole ground of awarding excessive damages.” In McClure v. Miller, 11 N. C., 133, it was held that the action was in truth to recover vindictive damages “for the disgrace and degradation” caused by the defendant, and hence abated on the death of the plaintiff (the father), which would not be the case if it were an action for loss of services.
In many States, by statute it has been made unnecessary to allege or prove loss of services, when such loss is a fiction (as it is in most eases) and also authorizing the woman to bring the action herself when of age. Stoudt v. Shepherd, 73 Mich., 589, and other cases cited in Am. & Eng. Ene., supra. In this State and others in which fictions have been abolished by The Code, the same result has been attained thereby. In Hood v. Sudderth, 111 N. C., at p. 221, it was held that The Code had abolished “the fiction of lost services in an action for seduction which henceforward became upon ‘a plain *624statement of the facts constituting a cause of action’ in legal construction, an action for exemplary damages. It would be singular’, to say the least, to retain the fiction that the action is based on the loss of services and not for the wrong itself, when the Legislature has made the conduct complained of a felony.” The same case held also that under another section of The Code (177) the woman, if of age, being the party in interest, can bring the action.
In Willeford v. Bailey, at this term, it is again said: “The action is really for the humiliátion, the mental suffering, and anguish inflicted by the seducer and for punishment to the seducer.” In Scarlett v. Norwood, 115 N. C., 285, and Abbott v. Hancock, 123 N. C., 99, it was held that the jury can allow the parent “punitive damages for the wrong done him in his affections and the destruction of his household.” The action is really 'based, not on the relation of master and servant, which was a fiction, but on that of parent and child (Terry v. Hutchinson, L. R., 3 Q. B., 599) and hence when the father is dead, it could be brought by the mother. Abbott v. Hancock, supra. By virtue of the parental relation, there is not necessarily any loss of services, and failure to allege or to prove, if alleged, that insignificant element of damages does not deprive the parent of proving and recovering for the injury really sustained.
When the action is brought by the woman herself, of course there can be no allegation or proof of loss of services by the father. When the female is under age, there are decisions (Smith v. Richard, 29 Conn., 232; McCoy v. Trucks, 121 Ind., 292; Stevenson v. Belknap, 6 Iowa, 97; 71 Am. Dec., 392) which hold that the girl herself may also maintain an action for the injury to herself, the action of the father (or mother) being for the injury to the head of the family upon whom, in public estimation, rests the responsibility for the conduct of the children. In actions by the father (or mother *625when the father is dead) it is hence admissible to show in mitigation of damages carelessness in exposing the daughter to the danger (1 Big. Torts, 151) or in bar of the action that he assented or connived at the seduction (Rodgers Dom. Rel., Sec. 839), but the father’s conduct in this respect could not be set up in an action brought by the woman herself. Cooley on Torts (2 Ed.), 276. In Scarlett v. Norwood, supra, at p. 286, it was left an open question whether the infant daughter might not also bring an action for the injury done to herself, which is something distinct from the wrong and humiliation brought upon the parent.
A fiction is defined as a “false averment on the part of the plaintiff which the defendant is not allowed to traverse, the object being, to give the court jurisdiction.” Maine Anc. Law. 25; Best on Ev., 419, cited by Black Law Diet. “Fiction.” As it is “not necessary to prove loss of services” it is not necessary to aver what is not a part of the cause of action, under the reformed procedure which, abolishing fictions and subterfuges, requires to be averred and proved that which is the true ground of the plaintiff’s action, and that only. When there has been actual loss of services, the complaint can so allege; but when there has been no real loss thereby, the plaintiff is not required to aver such loss, much less to swear to it in a verified complaint. He should set out the truth, the facts which constitute the real basis of his demand for dáta-ages and upon which he expects to obtain a verdict In Anthony v. Norton, 60 Kan., 341 (72 Am. St. Rep., 360); 44 L. R. A., 757, Doster, C. L, holds in a very able opinion that, under a statute similar to ours, the courts are no longer driven to resort to the fiction, the subterfuge, that there has been a loss of services when there has been none or it is of imponderable value, and that the action of seduction “can be maintained on the bare relation of parent and child alone.” This is straightforward and in accordance with the spirit of *626the times, as evinced in our system of legal procedure, under which the real matter in dispute should be clearly and plainly stated, tried and decided, leaving all outworn fictions to sleep in the limbo of things discarded by a practical age. Thus have passed away Richard Roe and John Doe in ejectment, the pretense of goods found in the old action of trover and other like fictions.
Many courts have deplored the “manifest absurdity” as they style it, of basing this action for a great moral, social and personal wrong upon a fictitious allegation that the father is a master who by reason of such wrong has lost the services of his daughter (Ellington v. Ellington, 47 Miss., 351; Cooley on Torts, 2d Ed., 275; Doyle v. Jessup, 29 Ill., 462, and many other eases) and courts have solemnly sustained verdicts for thousands of dollars when no loss of services whatever hais been proved. Erom that anomaly, our statute and decisions have happily freed us.
In Doyle v. Jessup, supra, Caton, J., says: “It is beneath the dignity of the law to resort to a sort of subterfuge to give the father a right of action which is widely different from that for which he is really allowed to recover damages.” Sir Frederick Pollock in his work on Torts (6th Ed.), 229, deplores that the English courts had not in the beginning “taken the bolder course, which might have been done without doing violence to any legal principle” of resting this action on its true basis, and quotes with approval Sergeant Manning’s statement that the “fiction of loss of services affords protection to the rich man whose daughter occasionally makes his tea, but leaves without redress the poor man whose child is sent unprotected to earn bread among strangers,” and adds that the enforcement of a just claim should not depend upon such a mere fiction. The law itself is beholden h> deal in truth with things as they are, and not in falsehoods, fictions,* evasions or subterfuges, and the real status of this action, un*627der our Code, can not be better summed up than by Chief Justice Doster at p. 367 of the opinion in Anthony v. Norton, supra (the whole opinion in which is well worth perusal), as follows: “If necessity ever existed for cloahing the real cause of action under the nominal disguise of another one, it no longer exists, and we hold accordingly. In this State a parent may maintain an action for the seduction of the daughter without averment, or proof, of loss of services or expenses of sickpess.” This goes straight to the mark like the arrow of Robin Hood on the heath at Ashby de la Zouch. The Kansas statutes cited and relied on by-him, Kansas Code, Sec. 6: “There can be no feigned issues,” and Kansas Code, Sec. 85, the complaint “must contain a statement of the facts constituting the cause of action, in ordinary and concise language and without repetition,” are almost identical, verbatim, with our Code, Sections 135 and 233 (2). Bouvier Law Dictionary “Fiction” says: “As there is no just reason for resorting to indirection to do that which might be done directly, fictions are rapidly disappearing before the increasing harmony of our jurisprudence. See 4 Bentham Ev., 300; 2 Pothier Ob. (Evans’ Ed.), 43.” The Constitution and The Code in this State abolished all fictions in legal procedure in 1868. They have been dead thirty-five years. We can not revive them, and there is no need to regret them.