## Facts

- A husband and wife rode on top of the defendants’ stagecoach from Portsmouth to London.
- The stagecoach overturned.
- The husband suffered bruising.
- The wife was severely injured and died in a hospital about one month later.
- The husband sued the stagecoach proprietors for his own injuries and for losses connected to his wife’s injuries, including loss of her society and his mental distress.
- The case was tried before Lord Ellenborough, C.J., who instructed the jury on the permissible scope of damages.

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff may recover civil damages for the death of a human being caused by a defendant’s negligence.
2. Whether a husband may recover for loss of his wife’s society and related mental distress after her death, as opposed to only during the period between injury and death.

## Decision

- The court instructed that “in a civil Court, the death of a human being could not be complained of as an injury.”
- The court limited damages connected to the wife to the period of her existence; damages “must stop with the period of her existence.”
- The jury could consider the husband’s own injuries and the loss of the wife’s society and the husband’s distress from the accident until the moment of her death.
- The jury could not award damages for the fact of death itself or for post-death loss of support or society.
- Verdict for the plaintiff; damages assessed at £100.

## Legal Principles

- At common law, no civil cause of action lies for wrongful death; death itself is not a compensable civil injury.
- Damages tied to injury to a person who later dies are limited to losses accruing before death, not losses accruing after death.
- Loss of consortium and accompanying mental distress may be recoverable only for the interval between injury and death, where otherwise recoverable.

## Conclusion

The court rejected recovery for wrongful death and confined damages related to the wife to pre-death losses, permitting compensation only for the husband’s own injuries and for loss of society and distress up to the time of the wife’s death.


Baker v. Bolton, 170 Eng. Rep. 1033 (K.B. 1808)