61 So. 480 | Ala. Ct. App. | 1913
In March, 1911, the plain tiff (the appellant here) sustained personal injuries as the result of his being.thrown from a street car of the defendant upon which he was a passenger in consequence of the excessive speed at which the car turned a curve at or near the place at which the plaintiff expected to get off. In October, 1911, he had verdict and judgment for $1,000 as compensatory damages for his injuries. This appeal presents for review the action of the trial court in overruling plaintiff’s motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial. The complaint against the verdict which is sought to be sustained is that its award of damages was grossly inadequate.
In a very recent case (Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. White, 175 Ala. 60, 56 South. 574) the Supreme Court had occasion to state some of the rules by which appellate courts should be guided in reviewing decisions of trial courts in such matters. The opinion in that case quoted with approval part of the following statement found in 8 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d Ed.) 628: “Where damages are susceptible of pecuniary estimate, and can be assessed with reference to or even limited by fixed standards and established values, the question of their excessiveness or inadequateness is not usually one of difficulty. But when the damages cannot be estimated in this way the question is not so easily decided. As the quantum of damages is in such cases a matter of
It is urged in behalf of the appellant that the amount of the verdict shows conclusively that there was a failure on the part of the jury to give due consideration to some of the elements of damage shown by uncontrovert-ed evidence in the case; and in this connection the following expression found in the opinion in the leading case of Phillips v. Southwestern Railway Co., 4 Queen’s Bench Div. 406, is quoted: “But we think that a jury cannot he said to take a reasonable view of the case unless they consider and take into account all the heads of damage in respect of which a plaintiff complaining of personal injury is entitled to compensation. These are the bodily injuries sustained, the pain undergone, the effect on the health of the sufferer, according to its degree and probable duration as likely to be temporary or permanent; the expenses incidental to attempts to effect a cure, or to lessen the amount of injury; the
The evidence shoAved that the principal injury sustained by the plaintiff Avas to one of his feet or ankles. Three physicians as Avitnesses for him testified in regard to the injury. They differed as to its nature and extent. One of them stated “that so far as the strength compared Avith the strength of the other foot is concerned witness did not think that it would ever be as good as the normal foot, though he thought that the
As to the elements of damage in the case which were not susceptible of pecuniary measurement by any fixed standard — as, for instance, the claims based upon the suffering and physical disability, whether temporary or permanent, entailed upon the plaintiff by the injury— the jury and the trial court, with the witnesses in person before them, and having the benefit of ocular demonstrations which the record on appeal does not and cannot reproduce, had a distinct advantage over a revising tribunal. The record does not enable us to say that the size of the verdict constituted satisfactory proof that the
The conclusion is that it has not been made to appear that the verdict complained of evidenced such an abuse of its discretion by the jury as to Avarrant this court in substituting its judgment for that of the jury and of the court below'.
Affirmed.