Article — Koch–Preuss
Article 1: Restitution for Damage Caused to Life and Limb
Injury done to the life or health of another entails the duty of restitution if the injured party, or in case of death his heirs, have sustained a definite and provable material loss. The wrong- doer is liable for all the damage done by his criminal act, whether mediately or immediately, if it was expressly intended, or was or could have been foreseen, including physicians’ fees, hospital expenses, wages or salary lost, a certain amount of smart-money if such is provided for by the civil law, the expenses caused to others by the support of an incapacitated person, and the loss suffered by husband, wife, parents, children, or heirs (lucrum cessans, damnum emergens). The heirs of the victim, if he has been killed, have a just claim to be indemnified for whatever he would have been strictly obliged to furnish according to law and what he could have done at the time of his death.1 Extraordinary funeral expenses must be compensated, for instance, if the slain person was killed away from home and the corpse has to be sent a long distance to be buried in the family tomb. Restitution must also be made to the creditors whom the dead man left unsatisfied, if the killing was the immediate cause of his inability to pay them.2
1 Gury, Vol. I, n. 695–698.
2 Busembaum, Medulla Theol. Mor., l. III, tr. 5, c. 2, dub. 6, a. 3, n. 7: “Nothing is restored for funeral expenses, because they would at some time eventually have had to be incurred, unless perhaps they had to be greater on account of the killing inflicted, e. g., outside one’s native country.”—Ibid., n. 12: “Although it is probable that restitution is also owed to the creditors of the slain person if some damage came to them from that killing, nevertheless the contrary is also probable . . . since the killing is not directly causative of that damage.”
The duty of restitution binds the slayer even if he was in error concerning the identity of the person slain,3 but does not extend to unforeseeable consequences of his act.
3 Idem, ibid., n. 2: “He who kills Caius thinking him to be Titus is bound to restitution, because that action is injurious to Caius.”—Cfr. St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. III, n. 628: “Others deny it, because the homicide in relation to Caius is merely accidental and involuntary.” (Ed. Gaudé, II, 106).
Injury inflicted in a duel does not entail restitution because there is implied no violation of commutative justice, unless one party was either by force or grave threats compelled by the other to fight, and hence deprived of his liberty.4
4 Cfr. Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, pp. 677 sq.
The judicial condemnation of an innocent man entails restitution on the part of the real culprit only if the latter was the efficient cause in directing suspicion to the former.5
5 Schwane, Die Gerechtigkeit, p. 113, note 2: “Caius is planning to kill his friend Titus and while waiting for a favorable opportunity, hears of a public quarrel between Titus and Sempronius, in the course of which the latter declared that he would take the former’s life. Thereupon he (Caius) kills Titus secretly. The suspicion falls on Sempronius, who is arrested and executed for the crime. Caius is obliged to make restitution to the wife and children of Titus as well as to those of Sempronius.”
To make compensation for industrial accidents in dangerous occupations (e. g., in mines or factories, or on railroads) is not a strict duty of justice, but merely one of equity, unless real guilt has been incurred.
The development of modern machinery has created new problems. In most cases of industrial accidents no single individual can be definitely blamed. The cause lies rather in the manner in which modern industry is organized and the danger involved in tending to machines. This danger can be reduced by caution on the part of the worker, by various safety appliances, legal precautions, and technical improvements, but it can never be wholly eliminated on account of the imperfection of human nature and especially because of the occasional interference of a higher power (vis maior) and accidents (casus). In indemnifying the victims of accidents, therefore, it is not enough to look to personal guilt (culpa), but a higher principle must be invoked, namely, causal connection. Now since industry as a whole, because of its peculiar character, is the ultimate cause of all industrial accidents, it is bound to make restitution to the injured in solidum. In consequence of the new social and political views, which are in conformity with social justice, provision against industrial accidents is now commonly made by accident insurance, either public or private,—if private, at the expense of the employer.6
6 Msgr. H. Parkinson, A Primer of Social Science, p. 250; J. Biederlack, S. J., Die soziale Frage, 7th ed., pp. 237 sqq.
Bodily mistreatment or injury which involve loss of the reproductive power are punished with special severity by the civil law, and in many cases are very serious indeed because they affect several persons.
Reading.—Sporer-Bierbaum, Theol. Mor., Vol. II, 2nd ed., 889 sqq.—St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. III, n. 626–639. (ed. Gaudé, II, 105 sqq.).—J. E. Pruner, Lehre vom Recht, Vol. II, pp. 148 sqq.—Idem, Kath. Moraltheologie, Vol. I, 3rd ed., pp. 538 sqq.—H. Noldin, S. J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 490 sqq.—A. Tanquerey, S. S., Synopsis Theol. Mor. et Past., Vol. III, pp. 239 sqq.—A. Lehmkuhl, S. J., Theol. Mor., Vol. I, pp. 675 sqq.