Darling v Gray & Sons
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 31 May 1892 |
| Docket Number | No. 4. |
| Date | 31 May 1892 |
| Court | House of Lords |
Ld. Chancellor (Halsbury), Lord Watson, Ld. Herschell, Lord Morris, Lord Field.
ReparationAction by mother for solatium and damages for son's death pending action raised by him for damages for injury.
A workman raised an action against his employers for damages for personal injury alleged to have been caused by the defenders' fault. The pursuer having died, his mother, as his executor, was sisted in his room.
While this action was pending the mother raised a second action in her own right against the same defenders for solatium and damages for the death of her son, which she alleged to be due to the same injury.
Held (aff. judgment of the Second Division) that the second action was incompetent.
(In the Court of Session, July 14, 1891, 18 R. 1164.)
The pursuer appealed.
Lord Watson.I am of opinion that the unanimous decision of the Second Division of the Court of Session in this case is in strict accordance with the existing law. The reasons assigned for it, which were delivered by Lord Young, are not fully expressed, but it sufficiently appears that the judgment of the Court proceeded upon the ground that the appellant's action was unknown to the law, and was therefore incompetent.
The maxim actio personalis moritur cum persona has a very limited application in the law of Scotland, and in evidence of that proposition I need do no more than refer to the elaborate opinions of Lord Neaves and other Judges in Auld v. ShairpSC.1 It is in my opinion unnecessary for the purposes of this appeal to examine that case or to consider how far a bare claim in respect of personal injuries occasioned by the negligence of another constitutes a debt due to the party injured, which will pass upon his death without having brought an action to his personal representatives. The law has long been settled that when the deceased has instituted an action to enforce his claim his executor can take up and insist in the process to the effect of recovering the pecuniary damages to which the deceased was entitled.
The Court of Session, by a series of decisions which trench somewhat closely upon the province of the Legislature, has, subject to certain limitations, sustained actions at the instance of relatives of the deceased in their own rights, and not in a strictly representative capacity, against the parties whose negligence occasioned his death for the loss which they personally suffered through that event. Your Lordships had recent...
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Dick v Burgh of Falkirk
...Session. In reaching this conclusion both courts considered that they were bound by the decision of this House in Darling v. Gray & Sons 19 R. (H.L.) 31 reported sub nomineWood v. Gray & Sons [1892] A.C. 576. It is clear, and the contrary has not been argued, that the present case is indist......
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Avery v London & North Eastern Ry. Company
...against the party whose negligence has caused the fatal accident. But, as Lord Watson pointed out in this House in the case of Darling v. Gray & Sons, 1892, 19 R. (H.L.) 31 at pp. 32-3; "There is not a single instance in which the Court has allowed two actions to be brought in respect of th......