Maiorano v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

Background

A woman who lived in Italy sued in Pennsylvania after her husband was killed as a passenger on a train by the defendant’s negligence. The death occurred in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania law generally gives surviving relatives a right to recover for wrongful death, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had held that non-resident aliens cannot bring that action. The plaintiff argued a U.S.–Italy treaty ratified November 18, 1871, gave her the same recovery rights a resident spouse would have under Pennsylvania law.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the treaty directly gave the Italian widow a substantive right to recover for her husband’s death. The Court examined Articles 2, 3, and 23 of the treaty. It said Article 23 guarantees citizens free access to courts but does not create substantive causes of action. Article 3 promises equal protection and security for citizens staying in the other country, but the widow never was in the United States and so was outside that protection. The Court concluded that any link between denying her recovery and reducing the husband’s safety was too indirect, and the treaty did not plainly intend to create the claimed right.

Real world impact

The ruling leaves the Pennsylvania courts’ decision in place and denies recovery to this non-resident foreign relative. It shows that treaty guarantees of court access or protection do not automatically create new substantive remedies for people who are not present in the United States. The opinion also explains that an Italian citizen actually staying in the United States would receive the direct protections of U.S. law, but absence from the country keeps the treaty from extending a state wrongful-death remedy.