Thomas Downie v. United States Lines Co.

I disagree with the majority’s view that the wrongful shortening of one’s life expectancy is not a separate element of damages in a Jones Act1 case..1 am of the opinion that the láw accords a right to life and its enjoyment, and that the invasion of this right is properly compensable as a separate element of damages.

As one text writer has graphically epitomized it, “the shortening of life through injury involves an amputation of life substance and so an absolute and irremediable loss.”2

The English courts have long allowed recovery for shortening of life expectancy as a separate and distinct…