McGrory

Agnes McGrory, a widow, for herself and as guardian of Agnes McGrory, her infant daughter, the two being the sole heirs at law of William McGrory, sued to recover damages alleged to have been sustained through the death of the husband and father, which was occasioned by a collision between a car of defendant Pacific Electric Railway Company, upon which deceased was riding, and an express train of the Southern Pacific Company. Defendants conceded their liability, but took issue as to the amount of damages to which plaintiffs were entitled. The jury sitting at the trial returned a verdict for the sum of twenty thousand dollars. This amount defendants contend is excessive and beyond any sum which the evidence established as the total of plaintiffs’ pecuniary loss.

William McGrory at the time of his death was a young man, twenty-five years of age. He had been married less than one year, and was regularly employed as a butcher at á salary of twenty dollars per week. His widow testified that at the time of her husband’s death they were living in a bungalow for which payments were being made out of the wages earned by deceased; that her husband was strong and in good health at the time…