Court Opinion

ID: 9684723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:09:35.48484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:59.086938
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(concurring). So long as the language of Wycko v. Gnodtke, 361 Mich 331, remains unmodified, that long we shall continue to have the trial bench of our State compelled to give the substance of the instruction given by the able trial judge in the case at bar. Attend the language in Wycko, characterizing the former definition of “pecuniary” loss (pp 337-340) :
“Loss meant only money loss, and money loss from the death of a child meant only his lost wages. All else was imaginary. The only reality was the king’s shilling. * * * That this barbarous concept of the pecuniary loss to a parent from the death of his child should control our decisions today is a reproach to justice. * * * We now reject, * * * the child-labor measure'of the pecuniary Iqss suffered through the death o’f a minor' child. *355* * * The pecuniary value of a human life is a compound of many elements. * * * This value is the value of mutual society ancl protection, in a word, companionship.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Said the trial judge in part here:
“So an individual member of a family has a value to others as part of a functioning social and economic unit. This is the value of mutual society and protection; in other toords, companionship, love and affection.” (Emphasis supplied.)
It seems to me the trial judge did exactly what he said he did:
“I have given you the rule as laid down by the Supreme Court.”
I can find no error in the charge, but I write separately to indicate my agreement, that Wycko be reconsidered as suggested by Mr. Justice Kelly and Mr. Justice Black. My concurrences in the application of the extant rule was based upon the principle of legislative acquiescence.
In view of the majority holding in Piercefield v. Remington Arms Co., Inc., 375 Mich 85, 100, quoted by the Chief Justice requiring no notice of breach of warranty from a contract of sale, the question of the sufficiency of notice in this case would seem to me to have been settled. I do not read the Chief Justice’s opinion to hold that the notice to Mobile was sufficient, but rather that no notice is required. I concur in the result reached by the Chief Justice.