U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Vermont, 1904

Stockwell v. Boston & M. R.

Stockwell v. Boston & M. R.
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Vermont · Decided July 11, 1904 · Wheeeer
131 F. 153; 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4893
Stockwell v. Boston & M. R.

Opinion of the Court

WHEEEER, District Judge.

As the writ has been amended according to the fact, which is allowable in such cases, the plaintiff now stands as a citizen of this state, and this court has now jurisdiction to consider the cause of action set up in the declaration as challenged by the demurrer.

The intestate was domiciled in Vermont, and, although he was killed in New Hampshire, here is the place where transitory causes of action would accrue to him and survive, if by law survivable. The action is for causing his death, and by the statute of New Hampshire is made to survive for the benefit of the widow and of the children, if any; but the statute does not provide to what personal representative the cause *154of action shall survive. That is left to the operation of general law. Pub. St. N. H. 1901, c. 191. It would not survive in any place where an administrator should be appointed merely for recovering this liability as an asset. Lyon v. Boston & M. Railroad Co. (C. C.) 107 Fed. 386. As no cause of action would accrue to the deceased in such a jurisdiction, there would be none to survive; but wherever it should accrue to him, there it would be to survive. Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U. S. 11, 26 L. Ed. 439; Stewart v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 168 U. S. 445, 18 Sup. Ct. 105, 42 L. Ed. 537. The right of action seems by the statute to be intended to survive where it would accrue to the deceased, which would be at the place of his domicile and principal administration, which is here; and the plaintiff seems to be his personal representative here, to whom it would survive if it existed.

Demurrer overruled.

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