134 Wis. 603 | Wis. | 1908
Lead Opinion
The trial court evidently felt constrained in his construction of the release in this case by what he termed a strict rule of law applicable thereto, to the effect that the general words of the release, acknowledging full payment and satisfaction of all claims by reason of the injuries received on defendant’s car on the date named, were limited by the specification of those injuries elsewhere in the writing, and counsel now contend that there is such a strict rule of law which must constrain us, to the effect that wherever words of particular description are contained in any contract, and more particularly in a release of damages, followed by more general words of discharge, the instrument must be construed as limited to the particular words and not extended to the full scope of the general words thereof. There is an entirely erroneous idea embodied in this contention. No rule of construction merely is a strict rule of law. In applying and enforcing any and every contract, especially when reduced to writing, it is the duty of the court to ascertain what the parties really intended by the words used in the instrument, and so-called rules of construction are but aids or suggestions resulting from common experience to the effect that
However, we do not think that the appellant’s claim of release and discharge from liability needs to rest at all on the general words contained in tbe writing. It seems to us clear that tbe very specification of tbe injuries received, whether they limit the genei’al words of release or not, suffice to include all that for which plaintiff now seeks recovery. Those words are of course an attempted description merely of the direct injuries received, not of tbe results which might.develop therefrom, and which, under the law, are properly included in the damages suffered by reason of those direct injuries. There is described in the release a scalp wound upon the head. If from that there had followed blood poisoning, however aggravated, necessitating radical treatment and causing great suffering, could anybody doubt that such result was included in a release of all damages for such injury ? We think not. Cary v. Preferred Acc. Ins. Co. 127 Wis. 67, 106 N. W. 1055. So it is not necessary for us to look in the specification for a description of the blood tumor or encysted ovary which the surgeons fopnd in plaintiff’s body, necessitating the serious operation which they described, if we find fairly included the direct injury to her body which, by natural processes of’ development, produced that result. The words of particularization are: “The right limb contused, head struck, shook up badly, and, further,
There is here no question of fraud and no suggestion of a mutual mistake as to the harm which might develop from the injuries plaintiff had received, so that we need not discuss whether the developments from a severe blow in the abdominal region are so obviously uncertain that the parties must have been conscious of the uncertainty and intended to embody it in their settlement, a subject which- was treated with some care in Kowalke v. Milwaukee E. R. & L. Co. 103 Wis. 472, 79 N. W. 762.
Our conclusion is that the trial court erred in construing this instrument; that by the very terms thereof is described the injuries which plaintiff received and from which the jury have found to- have resulted the damages claimed in the complaint and which they considered and allowed in their verdict. The making of the release was established without contradiction, and, with the fact found by the jury that the damages resulted proximately from such injuries, constituted a foundation upon which, by the application of a correct legal construction of the release, the court should have granted the defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
By the Court. — Judgment reversed, and cause remanded with instructions to render judgment for the defendant.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). I am unable to concur in the decision of the court and indorse the views expressed in the opinion regarding the intent of the parties expressed in the release in question. It is held that the injuries enumerated in the release and the results therefrom include the injury for which plaintiff seeks recovery in this action. The
It is declared in the opinion of the court that if the words in the release descriptive of the injuries were set out in a complaint plaintiff could have recovered for the injury to the ovary as a natural result of the direct injury so described. This would no doubt follow under the rule of procedure that damages insulting from one and the same cause of action must be sued for and recovered in one action. Under this rule such language in a pleading would be so liberally construed as to include all of the damages resulting from the cause of action set out in the complaint. Lumley v. Wabash R. Co. 76 Fed. 66. But I take it such is not the rule applied to releases for part of the damages resulting from an injury. Such a release can only cover what the parties intended should be covered by its terms, and cannot be extended to injuries not included in the agreement of the parties though arising out of the same cause of action. I am of opinion that plaintiff established a claim for recovery not included in the release, and that the judgment should have been affirmed.