v.
Covert
Action by appellant as widow of Thomas IT. Hutchens, a deceased member of the police force of the city of Evansville, to recover the funeral benefits and pension provided for in the act approved February 27, 1903 (Acts 1903, p. 102). To appellant’s amended complaint a demurrer was sustained, and the only question presented by this appeal is the correctness of that ruling.
The amended complaint is brief, and we set out its material averments as follows: “That on September 18, 1903, Thomas H. Hutchens, who was, and had been for more than twenty years prior thereto, a member of the police force of said city, was regularly detailed for duty at the Tri-State Eair Grounds in and adjoining said city, and in obedience thereto he entered upon the discharge of [*384] his duties as a policeman and as member of, said police force at said place on said day; that at said time and place, and during the hours he was on duty, and while of unsound mind, he shot Ered Heuke, chief of police of said city, Fred H. Brennecke, a police captain of said city, Jacob Lutz, a bystander, and himself, thereby dangerously wounding said Heuke, Brennecke and Lutz, and thereby instantly killing himself, thereby committing suicide, all of said shooting and wounding being so done and committed at once and as a part of the same transaction, and with the insane purpose and intention of killing said persons and of killing himself, and wholly as a manifestation of said unsoundness of mind, and without any provocation or other reason or cause; that this plaintiff is the widow of said Thomas II. Hutchens, and that she has not remarried since the death of her husband; that plaintiff has one child, the daughter of plaintiff and deceased, to wit, Helen E. Hutchens, who is six years of age; that plaintiff has paid the funeral expenses of said deceased; that by resolution of said board the funeral expenses of members of said police force are fixed at $75; that the defendants and said board have refused and still refuse to recognize any rights upon plaintiff’s part under said act, and have refused and still refuse to pay her anything; that there is and has been since the time of the organization of said board sufficient money in said police pension fund to pay all claims against it in full. Wherefore, from the facts above pleaded, plaintiff says that under the provisions of the aforesaid act she is entitled to $20 per month for herself and $6 per month for said child from the date of the death of said deceased to the present time, and that she is entitled to the amount provided by a resolution of said board, and by virtue of the by-laws thereof, for the funeral expenses of said deceased, to wit, the sum of $75, and that from the facts above pleaded there is now due and owing to plaintiff the sum of $500, for which amount plaintiff demands judgment,” etc. [*385] The statate under which appellant asserts her right to recover is a new one, and we deem it important, to a correct solution of the question involved, to refer to its most salient provisions. Section one provides that a police pension fund shall be created in cities of over 50,000 and less than 100,000 inhabitants, and designates who shall constitute the board of trustees for such fund. Sections two, three and four prescribe the powers of the board and the duties of the respective officers thereof. Section five provides for the creation of the fund, out of which the benefits and pensions are to be paid. One of the means thus provided for is by an assessment against each policeman, which is to be deducted from his salary and placed to the credit of such fund. Section six provides for the investment of the fund. Section seven provides for the retirement of a policeman under certain conditions. One of the conditions is that if he becomes permanently disabled, physically or mentally, because of injury or disease contracted while in the performance of his duty, he may be retired, and in that event he is to be paid out of the fund a sum equal to one-half of the salary he was receiving at the time of his retirement. It is further provided that upon the death of “any member of such police force, active or retired, while in the line of his duty or from natural causes, there shall be paid for funeral expenses of such deceased member a sum not to exceed $100, and should such deceased member leave a widow, or child or children under the age of sixteen years, or both, then there shall be paid to such widow out of said fund $20 per month, and such children shall receive $6 per month until they arrive at the age of sixteen years respectively, to be paid to the mother of such children, if. living, for their benefit,” etc. Other provisions of the act have nothing to do with the question involved, and it is unnecessary to refer to them.
The decision rests upon the question whether appellant’s husband lost his life “while in the line of his duty,” within [*386] the meaning of that phrase, as used in the statute. Her counsel affirm that he did. If they are right in their affirmation, the complaint states a cause of action, for all other essential averments under the statute are, present. It may be conceded that the deceased was where he had a right to be, for he had been detailed by a superior officer for service at the Fair Grounds.
In the act approved March 6, 1905, entitled: “An act concerning municipal corporations,” the act of 1903, supra, was repealed (Acts 1905, pp. 219, 349, §178, §3602 Burns 1905), expressly preserving any right that had accrued under it. In the act of 1905, supra, the entire subject of pensions and benefits to policemen, and their widows and orphans, is covered. That part of the new statute which covers the same matter as the one under which this action is prosecuted, is as follows: “Upon the death of any member of such police force, active or retired, while in the line of duty, and as a result of the performance of his duty, or for natural causes, there shall be paid,” etc. The beneficiary provisions of the act of 1905, supra, are identical with those of 1903, supra.
In Rhodes v. United States (1897), 79 Fed. 740, 25 C. C. A. 186, which was an action to recover from Rhodes what was claimed had been paid to him by reason of his fraudulent representations, the court approved the following instruction: “(2) If, now, under the foregoing general directions, you find either that the defendant never had the disease in question before he enlisted, or that he had been afflicted therewith, but had entirely recovered therefrom, before his enlistment, then, inasmuch as there appears to be no doubt but what he suffered from the [*390] disease while in the service, you must next inquire whether he contracted it in the line of duty. This means that he must have contracted the disease as a result of his service, or as a result or by reason of the fact that he was in the service. The service must have been the cause of the disease, not merely coincident in time. An attack of epilepsy, for instance, while a soldier in the army, not resulting from any connection with the army, or any risk, hazard, or danger thereof, but as a result of an hereditary predisposition, would not entitle a soldier to a pension on the ground that he contracted that disease while in the service, because such disease would not have been contracted in the line of duty.” The court in that case adopted the interpretation of the words “in line of duty” put upon them by Attorney-General Cushing, and further said: “The fact that after this construction congress has retained this expression for more than forty years, although it has repeatedly revised and amended the pension laws, amounts to a demonstration that Mr. Cushing and the court below properly interpreted its meaning.”
The claim of Gillespie for pension further illustrates the interpretation of the words “in line of duty.” In re Gillespie (1888), 2 Dec. Dept. Int. Relating to Pension Claims, etc., 16. The claim was based upon an injury claimant received in an altercation with a member of his company, in which the latter struck Gillespie upon the head with a board and injured his skull. The claim was disallowed,' upon the grorind that the injury was not received while' he was in “the line of duty,” and in disposing of the case it was said that the fact that claimant did not sustain a culpable relation to the cause of his disability does not, by reason of the same, affect his title to pension. The question involved in the claim is not whether claimant was to blame for the conduct of his assailant, but whether the blow struck by the latter was a necessary or even a reasonable incident of line of duty in the service.
[*391] In the case of Harding’s application for a pension (In re Harding [1888], 2 Dec. Dept. Int. Relating to Pension Claims, etc., 232), where his injury was a partial paralysis of the brain caused by a sabre cut or blow while on a boat, and while asleep in his bunk, being mistaken by a comrade for another, the claim was rejected upon the ground that the injury was not received while in “service and in the line of duty.” In passing upon the claim it was said: “The department holds in this and all similar cases that the wound, injury or disease must be the natural, probable, or proximate result, either mediate or immediate, of .soldier’s military duty, and that the phrase line of duty’ denotes that an act of duty performed in order to entitle claimant to a pension must have relation of causation, mediate or immediate, to the wound or injury received or the disease contracted, and which produced said disability or death. It cannot be reasonably claimed that the assault upon the claimant by his comrade, the result of mistaken identity, was the logical incident or probable effect of duty performed in the service. The question is not whether the soldier was in line of duty at the time he received his injury, in the sense that he was not disobeying any military law, rule, or regulation, or guilty of any culpable negligence, but rather what is the qualify or condition of the act which produced .the injury of which complaint is made? Claimant was not wounded or disabled because he was a soldier.”
In the claim of Ammerman for pension (In re Ammerman [1886], 1 Dec. Dept. Int. Relating to Pension Claims, etc., 5) the claim was rejected on the ground that the cause of the disability or of death giving title to pension must in some manner pertain to, and have a natural and logical connection with, the military service and to the line of duty in said service.
[*392]
A case directly in point is that of In re Gallagher, swpra, where it appeared there was an entire failure of proof connecting the insanity or suicidal mania of the soldier with his army service, and in passing upon the claim it was said: “This is a missing link in the chain of evidence which is absolutely essential to make out a proper case for the allowance of pension, and, unless supplied, it is necessarily fatal to the claim. It seems to be reasonably certain, from the testimony on file, that the soldier’s death resulted from poisoning by arsenic administered by himself with suicidal intent while the victim of dementia or mania, and when, therefore, he was irresponsible for his actions; and, also, that he had suffered more or less, at intervals,, from attacks of said dementia or mania for some years • subsequent to his discharge from the service and prior to his death.” These authorities settle the question against appellant. We are clearly of the opinion that, under the facts pleaded, appellant has not brought herself within the statute, and that she has no right of recovery.
Judgment affirmed.