Case Title: Young v. Bryan

Citation: 445 So. 2d 234

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1983-12-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
445 So. 2d 234 (1983)
Norman B. YOUNG as Executor of the Estate of Joe Young, deceased
v.
Raymond V. BRYAN as Administrator of the Estate of Jewel Bryan Young, deceased.
81-1050.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 2, 1983.
Rehearing Denied January 20, 1984.
*235 Benjamin H. Kilborn and Grey Redditt, Jr., Mobile, for appellant.
James B. Rossler of Stout & Roebuck, Mobile, for appellee.
EMBRY, Justice.
This is a wrongful death action.
It is undisputed that the late Joe Young shot and killed his wife, the late Jewel Bryan Young, and then committed suicide.
Their bodies were discovered by Raymond Victor Bryan, the Administrator of the Estate of his mother, Jewel Bryan Young and, in that capacity, the plaintiff in this action against Norman B. Young, Executor of the Last Will and Testament of Joe Young, deceased.
There were no eye-witnesses to the incident. However, a suicide note was discovered in Joe Young's real estate office, located immediately behind the Young's home:
Bryan filed suit seeking $500,000 damages for the wrongful death of his mother, alleging that Joe Young wrongfully took her life by shooting her. Norman B. Young, as executor, answered with a general denial and a special plea of insanity. A jury trial resulted in a verdict in favor of Bryan for $500,000. Young appeals from the judgment entered on that verdict.
A number of issues are presented by Young on appeal; dispositive are the issues whether the trial court erred by allowing Bryan to inject evidence and argument regarding Young's wealth into the case and whether it erred by allowing argument which misled the jury to award compensatory rather than punitive damages. Young contends the cumulative effect of such evidence allowed by the trial court was prejudicial. Specific evidentiary errors he notes are as follows:
Raymond V. Bryan, decedent's son, was allowed, over objection, to draw a diagram showing defendant's house on a hill with a lake and the legend "Double Branch Estates."
The trial court allowed the testimony of Raymond V. Bryan about the contents of a brown paper bag Bryan found beside *236 Young's suicide note. The bag contained deeds and insurance policies.
Counsel for Bryan, over objection, was allowed to ask defendant's expert witness:
During final argument, counsel for Bryan was allowed, over objection, to argue:
Also during final argument, counsel for Bryan was allowed, over objection, to argue:
We will discuss these alleged errors by the trial court in the order above presented.
In response to Young's objection to the admission of a diagram showing Young's house, driveway and his real estate office, counsel for Bryan stated:
*237 It is a well-established rule of evidence in Alabama that a diagram or drawing may be used by a witness to clarify his testimony. See James v. Mizell, 289 Ala. 84, 90, 265 So. 2d 866, 871 (1972); Crocker v. Lee, 261 Ala. 439, 445-46, 74 So. 2d 429, 435 (1954); Southern Cement Co. v. Patterson, 271 Ala. 128, 135, 122 So. 2d 386, 391 (1960). Further, "[t]he use of a blackboard for the purpose of illustrating testimony is within the sound judicial discretion of the trial court." Payne v. Jones, 284 Ala. 196, 201, 224 So. 2d 230, 234 (1969).
We cannot fault the trial court for allowing Bryan to use the diagram to explain his testimony.
Issues two and three deal with evidence introduced regarding the contents of the brown paper bag found beside the desk upon which the suicide note lay.
As to both of these issues Young argues that evidence that the documents in the bag were in order and seemed to be grouped together, coupled with evidence that the office and home were not in any disarray, is relevant to Young's mental state. He argues this is probative regarding Young's rational thought and behavior just prior to the homicide-suicide incident.
It is well-settled in Alabama that where there is an issue of mental capacity, a wide range of evidence is allowable. See: Watts v. State, 282 Ala. 245, 210 So. 2d 805 (1968); and Barbour v. State, 262 Ala. 297, 78 So. 2d 328 (1954).
Therefore, we hold the above evidence was admissible as probative of Joe Young's mental competence.
Appellant argues that evidence of the wealth of Joe Young's estate was again brought up in plaintiff's closing argument when it was stated: "We are trying the only thing the law leaves to us to try which is his estate. His estate that he so carefully organized the insurance papers about. His estate that he had all the deeds put together in one section." The contention is that prejudice to defendant was compounded when plaintiff was allowed to argue: "What about the living victims that he left?"
Appellant Norman Young contends these arguments were advanced for the sole purpose of prejudicing the estate of Joe Young by improperly introducing its wealth to the jury, and thereby encouraging the jury to award damages based upon elements not proper to be considered in the fixing of the amount of punitive damages.
We think it clear that both statements by counsel for Bryan during final arguments were improper. Recently, this court, in Horton v. Continental Volkswagen, Inc., 382 So. 2d 551 (Ala.1980), reversed the trial court for error occurring when the following statement was made by defense counsel during statement:
382 So. 2d  at 552.
This court opined that statement was an improper injection into the case of defendant's modest financial status:
382 So. 2d  at 552.
Remarks made by counsel for plaintiff in this case were much more prejudicial than that made in Horton. Here, counsel's statement during final argument as to defendant's estate had the effect of bringing in as evidence details regarding assets of the estate which had previously been admitted for other, permissible reasons, in a totally different context. Suddenly, evidence that defendant's estate held a number of deeds and insurance policies became relevant to the jury for a purpose other *238 than determining the mental state of Joe Young when he killed Jewel Bryan Young.
As to plaintiff's argument regarding the losses suffered by Jewel Young's family as a result of her death, it is axiomatic that the only damages recoverable under Alabama's Wrongful Death Statute, § 6-5-410, Code 1975, are punitive in nature. See Estes Health Care Centers, Inc. v. Bannerman, 411 So. 2d 109 (Ala.1982); Board of Trustees of University of Ala. v. Harrell, 43 Ala.App. 258, 188 So. 2d 555 (1965); and Hardin v. Sellers, 270 Ala. 156, 117 So. 2d 383 (1960).
We note, regarding both improper arguments in the instant case, that the trial court overruled an objection by counsel for Young and gave the jury no curative instructions. When an improper argument is made and the trial judge overrules an objection and fails to instruct the jury as to that impropriety or direct that the argument is to be disregarded, "the test upon appeal is not that the argument did unlawfully influence the jury, but whether it might have done so." Williams v. City of Anniston, 257 Ala. 191, 193, 58 So. 2d 115, 117 (1952). See also Estis Trucking Co. v. Hammond, 387 So. 2d 768 (Ala.1980), and Alabama Farm Bureau Mutual Casualty Insurance Co. v. Humphrey, 54 Ala.App. 343, 308 So. 2d 255 (1975).
Bryan contends that, because of the trial court's subsequent instructions to the jury, Norman Young could not have been prejudiced. He, Bryan, contends the trial court's final oral instructions to the jury, prior to and after it had begun its deliberations, cured any error. A portion of the trial court's oral charge to the jury was as follows:
Following this charge, and following a question asked by a juror, the trial judge stated:
The above instructions to the jury in no wise refer to the impropriety of prior statements by counsel for the plaintiff regarding the estate of the defendant or the losses suffered by the family of Jewel Bryan Young as a result of her death. The trial court should have, at the time the remarks were made, promptly noted to the jury that counsel had departed from legitimate argument. We do not think the oral charge regarding the nature of punitive damages eradicated from the minds of the jurors the improper and highly prejudicial statements made during final argument. In any event, we cannot say the argument did not influence the jury, and if it could have, we are duty bound to reverse.
After careful review of the entire record, we conclude the judgment below must be *239 reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C.J., and FAULKNER, ALMON and ADAMS, JJ., concur.