Source: https://openjurist.org/393/us/156
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:29:34+00:00

Document:
The LONG ISLAND RAILROAD COMPANY et al.
Petitioner was working for respondent as foreman of a track gang when a 300-pound railroad tie being lifted by the gang fell and severely crushed his right foot. He sued respondent for damages under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., and a jury in the District Court for the Southern District of New York awarded him $305,000.1 The trial judge denied the railroad's motion to set the award aside as excessive. The railroad appealed the denial to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and that court, one judge dissenting, ordered the District Court to grant the railroad a new trial unless the petitioner would agree to remit $105,000 of the award. 388 F.2d 480 (1968). We granted certiorari, 391 U.S. 902, 88 S.Ct. 1651, 20 L.Ed.2d 416 (1968).2 We reverse.
Petitioner argues that the Court of Appeals exceeded its appellate powers in reviewing the denial of the railroad's motion, either because such review is constitutionally precluded by the provision of the Seventh Amendment that 'no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law,'3 or because such review is prohibited by the Federal Employers' Liability Act itself. We have no occasion in this case to consider that argument, for assuming, without deciding, that the Court of Appeals was empowered to review the denial and invoked the correct standard of review, the action of the trial judge, as we view the evidence, should not have been disturbed. See Neese v. Southern R. Co., 350 U.S. 77, 76 S.Ct. 131, 100 L.Ed. 60 (1955).
The liability and damage issues were tried separately before the same jury. The evidence at the trial on damages consisted of stipulated hospital and employment records, a stipulation that petitioner's life expectancy was 27.5 years, and the oral testimony of the petitioner his medical expert, and an official of his railroad union. The railroad offered no witnesses.
We therefore conclude that the action of the trial judge should not have been disturbed by the Court of Appeals.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to that court with direction to enter a judgment affirming the judgment of the District Court.
I think it clear that the only issue which might conceivably justify the presence of this case in this Court is whether a United States Court of Appeals may constitutionally review the refusal of a district court to set aside a verdict for excessiveness. The Court purports not to decide that question, preferring to rest its decision upon the alleged correctness of the District Court's action in the circumstances of this case. Like my Brother STEWART, I am at an utter loss to understand how the Court manages to review the District Court's decision and find it proper while at the same time proclaiming that it has avoided decision of the issue whether appellate courts ever may review such actions.
Even assuming that this feat of legal gymnastics has been successfully performed, I believe that the correctness of this particular District Court decision, a matter whose proper resolution depends upon a detailed examination of the trial record and which possesses little if any general significance, is not a suitable issue for this Court. Accordingly, I think it appropriate to vote to dismiss the writ as improvidently granted, even though the case formally is here on an unlimited writ. See my dissenting opinion in Protective Committee for Independent Stockholders of TMT Trailer Ferry, Inc. v. Anderson, 390 U.S. 414, 454, 88 S.Ct. 1157, 1178, 20 L.Ed.2d 1 (1968). To the extent that this position is inconsistent with my having joined the per curiam opinion in Neese v. Southern R. Co., 350 U.S. 77, 76 S.Ct. 131, 100 L.Ed. 60 (1955), in which the Court adopted a course similar to that followed today, I feel bound frankly to say that the incongruity of today's decision brings me face-to-face with the question whether that earlier disposition was correct, and that I now believe it to have been wrong.* Since the Court professes not to reach the constitutional issue in this case, I consider it inappropriate for me, as an individual Justice, to express my opinion on it.
'If we reverse, it must be because of an abuse of discretion. If the question of excessiveness is close or in balance, we must affirm. The very nature of the problem counsels restraint. Just as the trial judge is not called upon to say whether the amount is higher than he personally would have awarded, so are we appellate judges not to decide whether we would have set aside the verdict if we were presiding at the trial, but whether the amount is so high that it would be a denial of justice to permit it to stand. We must give the benefit of every doubt to the judgment of the trial judge; but surely there must be an upper limit, and whether that has been surpassed is not a question of fact with respect to which reasonable men may differ, but a question of law. * * *' Id., at 806.
I believe this standard of judicial review is the correct one and can think of no better way to verbalize it.
'(G)iving Grunenthal the benefit of every doubt, and weighing the evidence precisely in the same manner as we did in Dagnello, where the large sum allowed was found not to be excessive, we cannot in any rational manner consistent with the evidence arrive at a sum in excess of $200,000.' 388 F.2d 480, 484.
While it is arguable that a fuller written factual discussion might have been in order, I can find no reason to suppose that the Court of Appeals did not apply the standard of judicial review that it said it was applying—the standard of the Dagnello case. Since I believe that standard to be the correct one, and since I further believe that review of issues of this kind in individualized personal injury cases should be left primarily to the courts of appeals, I would affirm the judgment.
Petitioner's complaint sought damages of $250,000. This was amended with leave of the trial judge to $305,000 after the jury returned its verdict in that amount.
The Court of Appeals rejected the railroad's grounds of appeal addressed to liability and to the dismissal of a third-party claim of the railroad against the contracting company which furnished a boom truck used by the track gang. None of those questions was brought here.
All 11 courts of appeals have held that nothing in the Seventh Amendment precludes appellate review of the trial judge's denial of a motion to set aside an award as excessive. Boyle v. Bond, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 178, 187 F.2d 362 (1951); Compania Trasatlantica Espanola, S.A. v. Melendez Torres, 358 F.2d 209 (C.A.1st Cir. 1966); Dagnello v. Long Island R. Co., 289 F.2d 797 (C.A.2d Cir. 1961); Russell v. Monongahela R. Co., 262 F.2d 349, 352 (C.A.3d Cir. 1958); Virginian R. Co. v. Armentrout, 166 F.2d 400, 4 A.L.R.2d 1064 (C.A.4th Cir. 1948); Glazer v. Glazer, 374 F.2d 390 (C.a.5th Cir. 1967); Gault v. Poor Sisters of St. Frances, 375 F.2d 539, 547—548 (C.A.6th Cir. 1967); Bucher v. Krause, 200 F.2d 576, 586—587 (C.A.7th Cir. 1952); Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Kirtley, 307 F.2d 418 (C.A.8th Cir. 1962); Covery Gas & Oil Co. v. Checketts, 187 F.2d 561 (C.A.9th Cir. 1951); Barnes v. Smith, 305 F.2d 226, 228 (C.A.10th Cir. 1962).
the standard has been variously phrased: 'Common phrases are such as: 'grossly excessive,' 'inordinate,' 'shocking to the judicial conscience,' 'outrageously excessive,' 'so large as to shock the conscience of the court,' 'monstrous,' and many others.' Dagnello v. Long Island R. Co., supra, 289 F.2d, at 802.
I feel entitled to state, by way of partial confession and avoidance of my action in Neese, that the writ in Neese was granted before I took my seat on the Court. See 348 U.S. IX, and 950, 75 S.Ct. 439, 99 L.Ed. 742 (1955).
See ante, at 157, n. 3.

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