Bradford v. Boley

Citations

• 167 Pa. 506
• 31 A. 751
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 940

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Liquor laws — Selling liquor to intoxicated person — Loss of husband's earning power — Suit by wife against saloon keeper — Act of May 8, 1854, sec. 3.</p> <p>Tlie act of May 8, 1854, sec. 3, P. L. 663, which provides that “ any person furnishing intoxicating drinks to any other person in violation of existing laws, or of the provisions of this act, shall be held civilly responsible for. any injury to person or property in consequence of. such furnishing,1’ will not sustain an action by a wife against a saloon keeper for loss occasioned by the imprisonment of her husband for voluntary manslaughter, committed while the husband was under the influence of liquor fur-, nished by the saloon keeper.</p> <p>The act of May 8, 1854, gives the right to the wife to maintain an action for an injury to her personal property in consequence of a liquor dealer’s unlawful negligence, but it does not, expressly or by necessary implication, give her an action for an injury to the person or property of her husband. Her interest in her husband’s earning power is not “property” within the meaning of the statute.</p> <p>Negligence — Remote and proximate cause — Selling liquor to intoxicated person.</p> <p>In such case the imprisonment of the husband is not the proximate consequence of the unlawful negligence of the defendant, but is the act of the law, — the direct result of the intervention of an independent agency of force: Beers v. Walhizer, 43 Hun, 254, distinguished.</p>