Docket No. 2557.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on behalf of
William Hiram Gray, Carrie Gray, and William Hiram Gray as Administrator of the respective Estates of Terence Florence Gray and Stuart Gray, Deceased,
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.
James Paul Gray, a naturalized American citizen, then 59 years of age, accompanied by his daughter-in-law, Terence Florence Gray, and her son, Stuart, wife and only child respectively of William Hiram Gray, an American national, were passengers on the torpedoed Lusitania. James Paul Gray survived but sustained severe personal injuries from which he suffered until his death on September 13, 1922. Terence Florence Gray and her son, 24 and 3 years of age respectively, were lost.
The claimant Carrie Gray, wife of James Paul Gray, was in Scotland and her husband, daughter-in-law, and grandson were en route to join her. She hurried to the bedside of her stricken husband, whose condition was precarious. The tragic death of her daughter-in-law and grandson and the striking down of her husband resulted in a mental shock to the claimant Carrie Gray, then 57 years of age, which the record indicates produced physical disorders from which she still suffers.
James Paul Gray expended substantial amounts for surgical and medical attention and nursing made necessary by the injuries sustained by him in the wreck of the Lusitania. He had accumulated a competency from the income of which, supplemented by small earnings from his personal efforts, he and his wife lived comfortably and made frequent trips abroad and to his former home in Scotland. His widow, Carrie Gray, his son, William Hiram Gray, and his daughter, Ethyl, wife of Doctor David James Graham of Edinburgh, Scotland, are the sole heirs-at-law of James Paul Gray. Mrs. Graham was at the time of the sinking of the Lusitania and has since remained a British subject. No claim is put forward on her behalf. There has been no administration on the estate of James Paul Gray and no necessity therefor.
Personal effects belonging to James Paul Gray, Terence Florence Gray, and Stuart Gray, all of comparatively small value, were lost with them.
William Hiram Gray was 37 years of age at the time of the tragic death of his wife and only child and a successful business man with a substantial income. His home, which was a happy one, was destroyed.
Applying the rules announced in the Lusitania Opinion and in the other decisions of this Commission to the facts as disclosed by the record herein, 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) William Hiram Gray the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000.00) and (2) Carrie Gray the sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00), 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 William Hiram Gray as Administrator of the respective Estates of Terence Florence Gray and Stuart Gray, Deceased.
Done at Washington January 30, 1925.
EDWIN B. PARKER,
Umpire.
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[a] Dated December 22, 1924.
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