Loughran v. Thomas Bros.

Citations

• 65 Pa. Super. 302
• 1916 Pa. Super. LEXIS 68

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Infa/nt—Contributory negligence — Damages.</p> <p>In an action by a mother to recover damages for the negligent killing of a child two years and four months old, she cannot be charged, as a matter of law, with contributory negligence, because she permitted or directed her six-year-old daughter, the eldest of four children, to take the child who was killed, with her when going on an errand to a nearby store.</p> <p>In an action to recover damages for the negligent killing of a little girl two years and four months old, a verdict for $559.50 will be sustained where it appears that the father and mother of the child testified as to the employment of the father, the location of the home and the good health of the child, and the chief of the hospital to which the child was taken after her injury, testified that her “foetal term was full, her birth normal,” and that her “general health was good.” In such a ease it is not necessary to call an expert to express an opinion as to the money cost of raising a baby, or as to its probable earnings, if any, over and above the expenses of its maintenance.</p> <p>It is settled law in Pennsylvania that a human life has a pecuniary value. In an action to recover that pecuniary value, the law requires, as it does in every case, the production of the best evidence that is reasonably available. But it never demands impossible things, and because, in certain eases.affirmative or positive proof is necessarily scant in volume it sanctions no conclusion that relief for a recognized wrong should therefore be denied.</p>