A statute of New Mexico (Anno.Stats., 1915, § 1820) provides
that, whenever any person shall die from an injury occasioned by
negligence of the servants, etc. of a railroad company whilst
running a train, the company "shall forfeit and pay for every
person or passenger so dying" the fixed sum of 5,000.00, to be sued
for and recovered by the husband in case of the death of a
wife.
(a) Held, that the purpose is not to punish an offense against
public justice, but to afford redress for a civil injury, and
therefore enforcement of the right accruing from a death in New
Mexico by an action in another state is not objectionable to the
principle that one state will not enforce the penal laws of
another. P
264 U. S.
350.
(b) The law of California (Code Civ.Proc., § 377) measures the
damages for death by wrongful act by the pecuniary loss resulting
to the surviving relative, while the above-cited act of
Page 264 U. S. 349
New Mexico fixes the amount in the class of case covered at
$5,000.00.
Held that there is here no such difference of
policy as should deny the aid of the state and federal courts in
California to the enforcement of a cause of action arising under
the New Mexico statute in New Mexico. P.
264 U. S.
352.
286 F. 1 affirmed.
Certiorari to a judgment of the circuit court of appeals
reversing a judgment of the District Court for the railroad company
and directing entry of judgment for the plaintiff, Nichols, in his
action to recover damages for the death of his wife, alleged to
have been caused by the company's negligence. The action came into
the district court by removal from the Superior Court of
California.
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.
Action for personal injuries received by Nichols' wife while a
passenger on a train of petitioner in New Mexico. The injuries
resulted in death. The action was brought in one of the superior
courts of the State of California, and removed on petition of
petitioner to the United States District Court for the Southern
District of California, Southern Division.
The amount sued for was $35,586.42, being composed of the
elements of $15,000 for the loss of services and advice of the
wife, $20,000 for the loss of her society, love, and affection, and
$586.42 for various specified services.
Page 264 U. S. 350
Judgment was rendered for petitioner, with costs. It was
reversed by the circuit court of appeals, with directions to enter
judgment for Nichols in the sum of $5,000.
The question of liability in some court petitioner does not
contest. It contests only that the law of New Mexico, upon which
liability of petitioner was based, is in conflict with the policy
of the State of California expressed in the laws and decisions of
the state. We therefore immediately encounter as an element for
consideration the law of New Mexico. It is as follows:
"Whenever any person shall die from any injury resulting from,
or occasioned by the negligence, unskillfulness or criminal intent
of any officer, agent, servant or employee whilst running,
conducting or managing any locomotive, car, or train of cars, . . .
shall forfeit and pay for every person or passenger so dying the
sum of five thousand dollars, which may be sued and recovered,
first, by the husband. . . ."
Code N.M.1915, § 1820.
The circuit court of appeals sustained the law. Judge Ross,
addressing himself to the contention that the law could not be
enforced or administered in California, or in a federal court
sitting in California, and considering the ground of the contention
to be that the law is penal, said:
"But a penal law is one thing, and a statute intended to protect
life and to impose a new and extraordinary civil liability upon
those causing death, by subjecting then to a private action for the
pecuniary damages thereby resulting to the family of the deceased,
is quite another. The latter is a question of general law."
For this were adduced
Huntington v. Attrill,
146 U. S. 657;
Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U. S. 11;
Texas & Pacific Railway v. Cox, 145 U.
S. 593.
The principle announced is contested, and the application of the
cases adduced to support it. The attack is
Page 264 U. S. 351
naturally directed against
Huntington v. Attrill, as it
declares itself to be in submission and sequence to the other
cases, as well as the expression of independent reasoning and
conclusion. The question there, as here, was upon the character of
a statute having "aspects" of penalty. It (the statute) was,
however, excluded from the class of criminal laws which had their
venue of commission and trial where committed, for it was decided
to be, applying and quoting from
Dennick v. Railroad Co.,
supra, "though a statutory remedy, a civil action to recover
damages for a civil injury," and this because the court decided
that, when a statute like the one passed on is involved in
consideration, the question whether it is one
"which in some aspects may be called penal, is a penal law in
the international sense, so that it cannot be enforced in the
courts of another state, depends upon the question whether its
purpose is to punish an offense against the public justice of the
state, or to afford a private remedy to a person injured by the
wrongful act."
The reasoning of the court is very complete, with the pertinence
of cases, and it has the supplement of a number of state rulings
which the circuit court of appeals has adduced.
The law of New Mexico is within the principle and description of
those rulings, and of
Huntington v. Attrill. It is in
reparation of a private injury, not in punishment of "an offense
against the public justice of the state." Its reparation is in a
fixed amount, it is true, but it is in an amount that has been
fixed by a consideration of the determining factors, they
necessarily having a certain similarity in all cases. It was the
legislative judgment, therefore, that the interests of the state
would best be served by an exact definition of the measure of
responsibility and relief when the circumstances were such as are
represented in the law. It is not less reparative because so
defined.
Page 264 U. S. 352
Against this conclusion an argument can be opposed, and is
opposed -- one not without strength and the support of cases. We
are unable to yield to it. We repeat -- we think the motive and
effect of the law is not punishment in the sense of a penal law,
but remuneration -- "damages for a civil injury." And a peculiar
injury, one resulting from death and its deprivations --
deprivations difficult to estimate (and which the common law did
not estimate in individual injury and redress), and therefore we
think properly within the power of the state -- its power to make
provision for the controversies and rights that may grow out of the
relations of its people.
The contention of petitioner is, as we understand it, not that
damages in redress of death are opposed to the policy of
California, but only when damages are given in a fixed amount as
provided by the law of New Mexico, the Code of Civil Procedure of
the state giving such damages only "as under all the circumstances
of the case may be just,"
* therefore,
confining the damages to compensation for pecuniary loss suffered
by surviving relatives of the deceased. This may be conceded; there
is nothing in the law of New Mexico that transcends the purpose. It
does not preclude the recovery of damages; it only defines them,
recognizing, as the Supreme Court of California has recognized, the
incapability of precise accuracy being attained either by court or
jury of the damages that may result from the death of a person to
surviving relatives.
Redfield v. Oakland C. S.
Page 264 U. S. 353
Ry. Co., 110 Cal. 277.
See also Ryan v. North
Alaska Salmon Co., 153 Cal. 438.
We do not regard therefore the code of the state as expressing
the policy of the state to be that the aid of its courts and of the
federal courts sitting in the state are to be denied the power to
enforce the redress given by the law of the state where the injury
was inflicted, the law not being penal.
Judgment affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS concurs in the result.
*
"Sec. 377. When the death of a person not being a minor is
caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, his heirs or
personal representatives may maintain an action for damages against
the person causing the death, or if such person be employed by
another person who is responsible for his conduct, then also
against such other person. In every action under this and the
preceding section, such damages may be given as under all the
circumstances of case may be just."