Deodand

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Deodand was a legal consequence in the Tort Law of the common law in England and Wales until 1846 if a person was killed in an accident.

term

The term Deodand is derived from the Latin term “deo dandum”, which means “to give to God”.

content

The object was caused by the death of a person or serious injury could, by the jury of a coroner for Deodand be explained, causing the instrument on 800-year-different legal consequences in the course of its existence.

history

Deodand has been attested since the 11th century. Before 1066, it was customary in the event of severe injuries or death to hand over the object causing the injury (called "bane") to the victim or his relatives, which was known as a noxal surrender . The replacement of this traditional method by the concept of Deodand after 1066 has not been clarified. The original idea behind the Deodand was to "punish" the causative, "guilty" object by removing it from circulation. He was drafted for this by the crown . In the next stage, the item was used by the crown and the proceeds used for church purposes. This changed to the fact that the jury determined the value of the corresponding item and not the item itself, but the corresponding sum had to be paid in its place. Deodand now represented an additional penance that hit the owner of the item in question. The penance was no longer given to the crown, but to the injured relatives. If the owner could not raise the amount, his village community or the municipality was liable for the amount. As far as the crown still had corresponding rights, they were usually sold to third parties.

From the second half of the 13th century, there is ample evidence of deodand in the coroner's protocols. Barrels, vats, carts, boats, stones, trees and other things were declared to be Deodand . The rules of when something became deodorant were complex.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the number of cases in which objects were declared Deodand continued to decrease. In the 18th century the legal instrument was used very rarely. However, the proceeds from the sale were now used to compensate the accident victims.

The emergence of the railways in England was associated with numerous accidents in their early days and the public charge that the railway companies took them lightly, which led to a hostile attitude towards them. According to common law, only physical damage to property or personal injury could be claimed in the event of an accident . Neither economic nor psychological damage could be claimed, and the victims' relatives were not entitled to compensation. In this legal situation, the juries “rediscovered” the Deodand instrument in order to remedy this. After the Sonning railway accident on December 24, 1841, with nine dead, the jury applied the law of Deodand and determined the value of the train involved in the accident at £ 1,000 . Ultimately, the Great Western Railway did not have to pay off this deodand , as the appellate court concluded that there was force majeure and that the railway company was not to blame. The railway companies did not want to accept that the Deodand could now become a negative economic factor and exercised corresponding influence on parliament . But this also saw the need to adequately compensate victims of rail accidents. Ultimately, this led to a compromise in which in 1846 both a law on compensation for rail accidents (Fatal Accidents Act 1846) was passed and the legal instrument of the Deodand was abolished (Deodands Act 1846).

United States

In accordance with the national jurisdiction in the USA for civil law , the legal instrument of the Deodand was handled very differently there. Although it was adopted under common law in the colonial era, it only forms the basis for compensation in some states today , while its use is explicitly prohibited in others, such as the Vermont state constitution .

literature

  • Hugh Chisholm : Deodand . In: Encyclopædia Britannica Vol. 8 (11th edition). Cambridge University Press . 1911, p. 55.
  • Edward Coke : Institutes of the Laws of England . 1669.
  • W. Cornish and G. Clarke: Law and Society in England 1750-1950 . London 1989. ISBN 0-421-31150-9
  • Jacob J. Finkelstein: The Goring Ox: some historical perspectives on deodands, forfeitures, wrongful death and the western notion of sovereignty . In: Temple Law Quarterly 46 (1973), p. 169ff.
  • Bryan A. Garner: Black's Law Dictionary . 10th edition St. Paul MN 2014. ISBN 978-0-314-61300-4
  • RF Hunnisett: The Medieval Coroner . Cambridge University Press 1961. ISBN 978-0-521-07943-3
  • RW Kostal: Law and English Railway Capitalism, 1825-1875 . Clarendon Press 1994. ISBN 019825671X .
  • Anna Pervukhin: Deodands A Study in the Creation of Common Law Rules . In: American Journal of Legal History 47/3 (2005), pp. 237-256. ISSN 0002-9319
  • T. Sutton: The deodand and responsibility for death . In: Journal of Legal History 18 (1997) Issue 3, pp. 44-55.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Also: Lord Campbell's Act named after the initiator of the legislation, John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pervukhin.
  2. ↑ Finkelstein.
  3. ↑ Coke.
  4. ↑ Hunnisett.
  5. ↑ Pervukhin.
  6. ^ Garner: Black's Law Dictionary , p. 529.
  7. ↑ Kostal, pp. 289f.
  8. ^ Lionel Thomas Caswell Rolt : Red for Danger . Edition: London 1978, p. 36.
  9. ↑ Cornish and Clarke, pp. 503f; Kostal, pp. 289f.
  10. ↑ Finkelstein.
  11. ↑ § 65 Constitution of the State of Vermont (in English ).