Docket No. 591.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on behalf of
Mary McCormick Stone, individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of Herbert Stuart Stone, Deceased, Herbert Stuart Stone, Jr., Melville Edwin Stone, 3rd, and Eleanor McCormick Stone,
Claimants,
v.
GERMANY.
PARKER, Umpire, rendered the decision of the Commission.
This case is before the Umpire for decision on a certificate of the two National Commissioners[a] certifying their disagreement.
Herbert Stuart Stone, an American national nearly 44 years of age, was a passenger on and went down with the Lusitania. He was survived by a widow, Mary McCormick Stone, then 36 years of age, two sons, Herbert Stuart Stone, Jr., and Melville Edwin Stone, 3rd, then 13 and 10 years of age respectively, and a daughter, Eleanor McCormick Stone, then 11 years of age.
The decedent graduated from Harvard University with the class of 1894. He at once engaged in the publishing business with conspicuous success. His investments yielded a return of not less than $5,000 per annum. At the time of his death his income from a fixed salary and compensation received for literary articles yielded a return of $16,000 per annum. He was able active, industrious, and his prospects were bright. He and his wife and children were solely dependent upon his income from his personal efforts and from investments made with money earned by him for their support.
No claim is made for the value of property belonging to the decedent lost with him.
The measure of the awards which this Commission is empowered to make in this case is not the value of the decedent’s life but the pecuniary losses suffered by claimants resulting from his death. To the extent that contributions by the decedent made during his life and those which he would probably have made to claimants but for Germany’s act causing his death were the fruits of the personal efforts of the decedent, the claimants have suffered pecuniary damages which Germany is obligated to pay. But to the extent that such actual or probable contributions were derived as income from the estate of the decedent, which vested in the claimants on his death and yielded to the claimants the same income as it yielded to decedent during his life, the claimants have suffered no pecuniary damages.
Applying the rules announced in the Lusitania Opinion and in the other decisions of this Commission to the facts as disclosed by the records, the Commission decrees that under the Treaty of Berlin of August 25, 1921, and in accordance with its terms the Government of Germany is obligated to pay to the Government of the United States on behalf of (1) Mary McCormick Stone the sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.00), (2) Herbert Stuart Stone, Jr., the sum of fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00), (3) Melville Edwin Stone, 3rd, the sum of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000.00), and (4) Eleanor McCormick Stone the sum of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000.00), with interest on each of said sums at the rate of five per cent per annum from November 1, 1923; and further decrees that the Government of Germany is not obligated to pay to the Government of the United States any amount on behalf of Mary McCormick Stone as Administratrix of the Estate of Herbert Stuart Stone, Deceased.
Done at Washington January 14, 1925.
EDWIN B. PARKER,
Umpire.
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[a] Dated January 5, 1925.
