McMahon v. Sankey

Citations

• 133 Ill. 636
• 24 N.E. 1027

Syllabus

<p>1. Intoxicating liquobs—injury to means of support—as to elementsr affecting the right of recovery. In an action by a widow, against a dram-shop keeper and his lessor, to recover for an injury to her means of support, it is error for the court to so instruct the jury as to make the \\ right of recovery depend upon the question whether the plaintiff has-been injured in her means of support “by the sale or gift of intoxicating liquor” to her husband. Intoxication produced by the liquor sold or given, and not the mere gift or sale of the liquor, must be the cause-of injury to the means of support.</p> <p>‘ 2. In such an action, it is necessary for the plaintiff to show the sale or gift of intoxicating liquor to the deceased, and also to show intoxication resulting from the liquor so sold or given, and injury resulting from such intoxication.</p> <p>3. A husband is under a legal obligation to support his wife, and this right of support is not limited to supplying the bare necessaries of life,, but includes comforts, and whatever is suitable to the wife’s situation and the husband’s condition in life. Whatever lessens or destroys her husband’s ability to supply her with suitable comforts, to that extent injures her means of support, even though she is not thereby deprived of the actual necessaries of life.</p> <p>4. The Dram-shop act was not intended to enable the affluent, or those well provided for, to sue and recover simply because the husband and father may become intoxicated, and while in that condition may lose time, neglect his business, and so become possessed of smaller means than he already had, but it was designed to protect the family of the drunkard against immediate and probable want of adequate support.</p> <p>5. In order to maintain her action, under the statute, for injury to her means of support, it is by no means necessary for the wife to show that she has actually been without support, or been at .any time, in whole or in part, deprived of the mean