A state law allowing punitive damages to be assessed in actions
against employers for deaths caused by negligence of their
employees -- the object of the statute being to prevent negligent
destruction of human life -- does not violate the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P.
274 U. S.
114.
213 Ala. 222, affirmed.
Page 274 U. S. 113
Error to the Supreme Court of Alabama, to review a judgment
sustaining a recovery in an action for death by negligence.
MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Defendant in error, an administrator, brought suit in the
Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama, to recover for the
wrongful death of his intestate caused by the negligent operation
of an elevator by an employee of plaintiff in error in its
department store. The action was founded upon the so-called
Homicide Act of Alabama, § 5696, Code of 1923, printed in the
margin.
* This statute
authorizes the recovery of damages from either a principal or an
agent, in such amount as the jury may assess, for wrongful act or
negligence causing death. The jury returned a verdict of $9,500 and
judgment for that amount was affirmed on
Page 274 U. S. 114
appeal. 213 Ala. 222, 104 So. 526. The case comes here on writ
of error. Judicial Code, § 237, as amended.
Plaintiff in error does not deny its liability for the negligent
act of its employee. But it calls attention to the fact that the
Homicide Act imposing liability upon the employer for death
resulting from the wrongful acts, omissions, or negligence of its
employees, as interpreted by the state courts, permits the jury, as
in this case, to assess punitive damages against the employer for
the mere negligence of its employee.
Richmond & Danville R.
Co. v. Freeman, 97 Ala. 289. A statute which so authorizes the
mulcting of the employer, it is argued, is
"unreasonably oppressive, arbitrary, unjust, violative of the
fundamental conceptions of fair play, and therefore repugnant to
the Fourteenth Amendment."
The legislation now challenged has been on the statute books of
Alabama in essentially its present form since 1872. The liability
imposed is for tortious acts resulting in death, but the damages,
which may be punitive even though the act complained of involved no
element of recklessness, malice, or willfulness, may be assessed
against the employer who, as here, is personally without fault. The
Supreme Court of Alabama has repeatedly ruled that the statute is
aimed at the prevention of death by wrongful act or omission.
Savannah & Memphis R. Co. v. Shearer, 58 Ala. 672,
680;
South and North Alabama R. Co. v. Sullivan, 59 Ala.
272, 279. "The statute is remedial, and not penal, and was designed
as well to give a right of action where none existed before, as to
"prevent homicides," and the action given is purely civil in its
nature for the redress of private, and not public, wrongs."
Southern Ry. v. Bush, 122 Ala. 470, 489. In defining the
scope of the act, the state court has pointed out that the extent
of the culpability and the amount of the verdict are for the jury
and that its finding is not to be disturbed unless the verdict
Page 274 U. S. 115
is "induced or reached on account of prejudice, passion, or
other improper motive or cause."
Mobile Electric Co. v.
Fritz, 200 Ala. 692, 693. The case was argued here on the
assumption that its scope was thus limited, and we so interpret the
statute. Its constitutionality has been upheld by both state and
federal courts.
Richmond & Danville R. Co. v. Freeman,
supra; U.S. Cast Iron Pipe & Foundry Co. v. Sullivan, 3
F.2d 794.
The objections now urged to a new form of vicarious liability
were considered and rejected in the Workmen's Compensation cases,
New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U.
S. 188;
Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington,
243 U. S. 219, as
they must be rejected here. The extension of the doctrine of
liability without fault to new situations to attain a permissible
legislative object is not so novel in the law or so shocking "to
reason or to conscience" as to afford, in itself, any ground for
the contention that it denies due process of law. The principle of
respondeat superior itself and the rule of liability of
corporations for the willful torts of their employees extended in
some jurisdictions, without legislative sanction, to liability for
punitive damages,
Boyer & Co. v. Coxen, 92 Md. 366;
Hanson v. E. & N.A. R. Co., 62 Me. 84;
Jeffersonville R. Co. v. Rogers, 38 Ind. 116;
Atlantic
& Great West. Ry. v. Dunn, 19 Ohio St. 162.
See
Jefferson County Savings Bank v. Eborn, 84 Ala. 529, 534;
contra, Lake Shore Ry. v. Prentice, 147 U.
S. 101, are recognitions by the common law that the
imposition of liability without personal fault, having its
foundation in a recognized public policy, is not repugnant to
accepted notions of due process of law. No constitutional question
was presented in
Lake Shore Ry. v. Prentice, supra, and
this Court thus was free to choose, as between these conflicting
common law rules, the one which it thought most appropriate.
Lord Campbell's Act and its successors establishing liability
for wrongful death where none existed before,
Page 274 U. S. 116
the various Workmen's Compensation Acts imposing new types of
liability, are familiar examples of the legislative creation of new
rights and duties for the prevention of wrong or for satisfying
social and economic needs. Their constitutionality may not be
successfully challenged merely because a change in the common law
is effected. As interpreted by the state court, the aim of the
present statute is to strike at the evil of the negligent
destruction of human life by imposing liability, regardless of
fault, upon those who are in some substantial measure in a position
to prevent it. We cannot say that it is beyond the power of a
legislature, in effecting such a change in common law rules, to
attempt to preserve human life by making homicide expensive. It may
impose an extraordinary liability such as the present not only upon
those at fault, but upon those who, although not directly culpable,
are able nevertheless, in the management of their affairs, to guard
substantially against the evil to be prevented.
See St. Louis
Iron Mountain & S. Ry. v. Taylor, 210
U. S. 381;
Texas & Pacific Ry. v. Rigsby,
241 U. S. 33,
241 U. S. 43;
Wilmington Mining Co. v. Fulton, 205 U. S.
60;
cf. Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U.
S. 465. Or it may impose on the business or enterprise
in which such loss of life occurs the economic burden of the
protective measure adopted,
New York Central R. Co. v. White,
supra; Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S.
1, or return to and substitute the common law method of
permitting the jury to fix the amount of recovery, at least to the
extent of an exercise of its reasonable judgment, for the
present-day method of weighing and measuring the value of human
life.
The distinction between punitive and compensatory damages is a
modern refinement. The first use of the term "exemplary damages" is
ascribed to Lord Camden in
Huckle v. Money, 2 Wils. 205.
See Sedgwick, Damages, § 348. Although sporadic instances
of new trials' being
Page 274 U. S. 117
ordered because the verdict was excessive may be found in the
early common law,
see Wood v. Gunston, Style 466;
Chambers v. Robinson, 2 Stra. 691, it was not until much
later that the formal practice developed,
Duberley v.
Gunning, 4 T. R. 654;
Wilford v. Berkeley, 1 Burr.
610; Mayne, Damages 691, and the fixed rules of damages
evolved.
Judgment affirmed.
*
"A personal representative may maintain an action, and recover
such damages as the jury may assess in a court of competent
jurisdiction within the state of Alabama, and not elsewhere, for
the wrongful act, omission, or negligence of any person or persons,
or corporation, his or their servants or agents, whereby the death
of his testator or intestate was caused, if the testator or
intestate could have maintained an action for such wrongful act,
omission, or negligence if it had not caused death. Such action
shall not abate by the death of the defendant, but may be revived
against his personal representative, and may be maintained though
there has not been prosecution, or conviction, or acquittal of the
defendant for the wrongful act, or omission or negligence, and the
damages recovered are not subject to the payment of the debts or
liabilities of the testator or intestate, but must be distributed
according to the statute of distributions. Such action must be
brought within two years from and after the death of the testator
or intestate."