Docket No. 2207.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on behalf of
John W. Wren, Administrator of the Estate of Catherine Driscoll Wren, Deceased,
Claimant,
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.
This claim is presented on behalf of John W. Wren, administrator of the estate of his deceased wife, Catherine Driscoll Wren, for damages alleged to have been sustained by the latter during her life resulting from the death of her first husband, Timothy J. Driscoll, who was a passenger on and went down with the Lusitania.
The facts are very meagerly and unsatisfactorily presented by the record, which discloses that Timothy J. Driscoll, a native of Ireland, married Catherine Walsh, also a native of Ireland, at Boston in 1891. Thereafter, in 1896, he became through naturalization a citizen of the United States. The certificate issued at that time describes him as “a laborer”. The record indicates that his wife, Catherine Driscoll, lived in South Boston, but during the last five years of his life Timothy J. Driscoll had a room in the rooming house of Mr. and Mrs. Burns at Boston where Catherine Driscoll was unknown. From this rooming house Driscoll left Boston for New York to take third-cabin passage on the Lusitania. To Mr. and Mrs. Burns, at their rooming house, came the Cunard Steamship Company’s notification of Driscoll’s death. There is nothing in the record to indicate whether Driscoll and his wife were living together during the last five years of his life. The inference from the facts stated is that they were living apart. He left no issue. The claim originally put forward on behalf of Catherine Driscoll Wren and verified by her “cross-mark signature”. In the statement submitted by her there is no disclosure with respect to the occupation of Timothy J. Driscoll, the amount of his earnings, the contributions, if any, made by him to the then claimant, and nothing to indicate that she knew that Driscoll was sailing on the Lusitania, or the purpose of his trip to his native country, or whether or not he intended to return to the country of his adoption. There is a statement in the record to the effect that Driscoll worked “fairly regularly” as a “common laborer”. The claimant has wholly failed to discharge the burden of proving that Catherine Driscoll sustained damages resulting from the death of Timothy J. Driscoll, as measured by pecuniary standards.
There is some evidence in the record that when Timothy J. Driscoll left Boston for New York to take passage on the Lusitania he had with him personal effects and cash. The record wholly fails to disclose whether or not he died intestate, or the identity of his heirs-at-law, or whether or not there was any administration on his estate or any need for administration thereon. No claim is made on behalf of the estate of Timothy J. Driscoll, deceased, but this claim is put forward on behalf of the Administrator of the Estate of Catherine Driscoll Wren, Deceased.
It appears from the record that on May 12, 1918, Catherine Driscoll married John W. Wren, a native of Ireland and by naturalization a citizen of the United States. It also appears that Catherine Driscoll Wren died on July 3, 1920, without issue.
Applying the rules heretofore announced in the Lusitania Opinion and in the other decisions of this Commission to the facts as disclosed by the record, the Commission decrees that under the Treaty of Berlin of August 25, 1921, and in accordance with its terms the Government of Germany is not obligated to pay to the Government of the United States any amount on behalf of the claimant herein.
Done at Washington January 14, 1925.
EDWIN B. PARKER,
Umpire.
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[a] Dated January 8, 1925.
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