Article I. On Restitution Because of Homicide

I say. Although a voluntary and unjust homicide or mutilator is held to nothing precisely for life or member, at least according to the rigor of law, because these goods are not estimable by money, nevertheless he is held to compensate all temporal damages, if any have directly followed from homicide or mutilation. But that it may be known what properly ought to be restored and to which persons, three kinds of damages are to be distinguished. For 1st, some are done to the one killed or mutilated himself, as, for example, expenses for the cure of the wound; and reparation of these must be made also to the heirs after death, unless the person killed has condoned it; 2nd, others are inflicted upon wife, children, father, and mother, who all not only were in fact sustained by the person killed or mutilated, but also by nature itself had a right to this support; and payment of these must be made unless they are condoned by those same persons who suffered the damage; 3rd, still others are done to any creditors whatever of the person killed or mutilated, and these are contracted when there is an intention of harming them directly. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, nn. 631, 634, and 639; and Hom. Ap. nn. 82 and 83. - Lugo, disp. 11, sect. 4. - Ballerini, note (a) (b) and (c), p. 606.

You Will Resolve. - 1st. A homicide probably is not held to restitution toward the wife and children of the one killed for future damages, if they can easily provide for themselves. The reason is that near relatives do not have a strict right except to those things which the one killed ought to have expended upon them from strict piety; but in the aforesaid case the obligation from piety would not have been strict. Therefore . . . - Cf. St. Alphonsus, Hom. Ap. n. 87. - Reuter, n. 384. - Lacroix, lib. 3, part 2, n. 309. - Elbel, n. 315.

2nd. If the killer indeed foresaw the damages of the creditors of the one killed, but intended them only indirectly, he is not held to repairing them, because then he is only their cause by accident. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 634.

3rd. If a homicide is punished with death before he has repaired the damages, his heirs are still held to repairing them, because by the penalty he indeed satisfies vindictive justice, but not commutative justice. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, Hom. Ap. n. 90.

4th. He who killed another in a duel, whether he was the challenger or the accepter, probably is not held to repairing those damages which touch only the person killed himself and can be remitted by him. The reason is that the one killed, accepting or challenging to a duel, is judged to have wished to condone the obligation which he could have condoned, as is that which arises from damages of the first kind.