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42 W. Va. 551

Rowe v. Shenandoah Pulp Co.

West Virginia Supreme Court

Decided December 2, 1896

West Virginia Supreme Court · decided 1896-12-02

<p>1. Survivorship — Action by Co-Tenants — Death of Party.</p> <p>Where two or more co-tenants bring an action of trespass on the case to recover damages caused by the action of the defendant in constructing a dam and thereby overflowing their property, and one of the plaintiffs dies, the suit survives as to the other plaintiffs, and may be proceeded in by them.</p> <p>2. Measure of Damages — Instruction.</p> <p>In such a suit it is proper for the court to instruct the jury that they will find, in assessing damages, if they believe from the evidence any were inflicted upon the property in question by the defendant, only such difference in the value of the said property at the time said damages were inflicted and the value of the said property before the said damage was so done.</p> <p>3. Abatement — Death of Party — Error.</p> <p>In such a suit, if one of the parties plaintiff dies pending the suit the same should abate as to such deceased party; and it is error, upon the appointment of an administrator for the estate of such deceased party, to allow the suit to proceed in the name of such administrator and the survivors at the same time.</p>

Relies on Watts v. Norfolk & W. R.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1896-12-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently May 2006

17 state decisions

30189619001910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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BRANNON, Judge,

¶1dissenting:

¶2I dissent from the opinion by Judge English reversing the judgment because of the refusal to abate the attachment. I am clearly of the opinion that the Court ought to have abated the action as to the dead co-plaintiff, and have *560ordered tbe case to proceed in the name of the survivors, as two suits could not be made out of one, especially as the whole cause of action remained with the survivors, leaving nothing in the administrator of the dead man, on which to prosecute the suit. Code, c. 127, s. 2, does save the action from death under the common-law, but only in favor of the survivors. But the court has not yet tried that branch of the suit standing in the name of the administrator. If that be tried, and judgment given for plaintiffs, a writ of error would remedy the error of persisting in that branch of the suit. That bridge can not be crossed until it shall he reached. The court tried the action as to the surviving plaintiffs just as it ought to have done if a proper order of abatement had been entered. Then how can you reverse a judgment for that cause in that branch of the suit, so to call it, but really the suit proper ? The defendant is not injured in this present trial by the refusal to abate as to the dead man. If even there had been recovery of the whole — not merely three-fourths — of the damages, that would have been no ground of complaint. The only error in this case is the limiting to the recovering of three-fourths, but that is an error in favor of the defendant. I agree to reverse for the refusal of instruction No. 2. I see no error in refusing No. 1. The action was for permanent injury. Watts v. Railroad Co. 39 W. Va. 196 (19 S. E. 521).

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