Case ID: ohio-law-abs_4/html/0490-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 583
    NEW YORK CENT. RAILWAY CO. v. IRVINE
    No. 19833.
    Supreme Court
    On motion to certify.
    Dock. May 20, 1926.
    355. DAMAGES — In an action by an employe against a railroad company by reason oí the loss of one eye and the impairment of the sight of the other may the jury in assessing damages consider the effect that such impairment may have on his earning capacity in the future as well as what it has had in the past, or should the court charge that the damages must be limited to those reasonably certain to result from the injury.
    Attorneys — West, Lamb & Westenhaver, Cleveland, for Company; Bernsteen & Bernsteen, Cleveland, for Irvine.
   James Irvine brought this suit originally in the Cuyahoga Common Pleas against the New York Central Railroad Company for damages sustained by reason of the alleged negligence of the company.

Judgment was rendered by the Common Pleas for Irvine, which judgment was affirmed by the appeals.

The error complained of is that the court did not properly charge the jury concerning the elements of damage. The court charged in part as follows:

“Fou may take into consideration any impairment of vision which has been established and the effect that such impairment of vision may have upon his earning capacity in the future as well as what it has had in the past. These are the principal elements which you will take into consideration.”

Irvine had lost the sight of one eye and had sustained an impairment of the vision of the other through this injury. The company in the Supreme Court contends:

1. That the damages should have been lim ited by the court in its charge to such as may be reasonably certain to result from the injury.

/,. The charge of the court placed the company at the mercy of any speculation in which the jury cared to indulge.