Price v. Railroad Co.

Citations

• 33 S.C. 556
• 12 S.E. 413
• 1890 S.C. LEXIS 173

Syllabus

<p>1. The employee of a railroad company having received injuries through its alleged negligence, released the company, for value, from all liability on account of such injuries; and afterwards, died. Held, that his administratrix, suing for the use of the widow and child of the intestate, could not maintain action for the damages resulting to them from his death, as, under the statute, such action can be maintained only where the party injured could have maintained such action if death had not ensued; and this the deceased could not have done, because his release debarred him. And the trial judge erred in refusing to admit this release in evidence against the administratrix.</p> <p>2. The provision of the law that the remedy given by this statute “shall not apply to any case where the person injured has, for such injury, brought action which has proceeded to trial and final judgment before his or her death,” is not an exception to the previous sections, nor does it imply that action in behalf of the widow and children will be defeated only by judgment already had in an action instituted by the intestate, but was only intended to prevent a double remedy for the same wrongful act in any possible case.</p> <p>3. It seems that the cause of action given by the statute to the widow and children in- such cases, is only a continuation of the original cause of action, accruing to the party injured, but enlarged in its scope so as to embrace the damages resulting from the death.</p>