Case Name: Heer, Administratrix, Respondent, vs. Warren-Scharf Asphalt Paving Company, Appellant
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1903-05-08
Citations: 118 Wis. 57
Docket Number: 
Parties: Heer, Administratrix, Respondent, vs. Warren-Scharf Asphalt Paving Company, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 118
Pages: 57–81

Head Matter:
Heer, Administratrix, Respondent, vs. Warren-Scharf Asphalt Paving Company, Appellant.
April 22
May 8, 1903.
Negligence: Steam roller: Operation so as to frighten horses: Personal injuries: Contributory negligence: Evidence: Measure of damages: Instructions to jury: Material error.
1. Where a steam roller, at the time plaintiff attempted to pass, had ceased operation, and was standing stationary, outside the limits of the driveway of a street, it cannot he said to he negligence, in law, to attempt to drive past it.
2. Where a steam roller, standing stationary outside the limits of the driveway of a street, is started from its condition of rest and quietude into motion at the moment a passing horse is slightly in front of the roller, such action warrants a finding by the jury that it was calculated to frighten even a gentle horse, and, under the duty which rests upon all men to so conduct themselves as not to place others in serious peril, that it was negligence so to do.
3. In such case, it is not error to refuse to hold, as matter of law, either that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, or that defendant was free from negligence.
4. In an action for negligence resulting in personal injuries, it appeared, as descriptive of the physical and mental labor which plaintiff had been able to perform prior to his injury, that he conducted a grocery business alone, but for trifling assistance from a boy, doing the buying, selling, etc., working twelve to fourteen hours per day. Plaintiff then proceeded to describe the character and magnitude of the business — specifying the articles dealt in, the manner of their purchase — and, having no books, testified that the average stock carried was about $2,000, the average annual sales about $7,000, and the average net profits about twenty per cent, of the sales, or $1,500. The court instructed the jury that the plaintiff could recover in addition to the usual items of expense of treatment, past and future suffering, etc., “the loss of earnings of the ;plaintiff which he has already suffered, and which you are reasonably certain he will suffer in the future.” Such instruction was conceded to be a correct abstract statement of the 'law. Held, that if further instructions were necessary or proper to guard against misapprehension by the jury of the effect of the evidence above mentioned, appellant should have made reguest therefor, without which no error could he assigned upon their absence.
5. In an action for negligence resulting in personal injuries, evidence may he given to show fully the capacity of plaintiff ten labor before the injury, and if his work consisted in the management of a business, the character and magnitude thereof,, not that the jury is to allow any loss of such profits as damages, but to consider them, with other elements, as descriptive of the amount and grade of the services of which plaintiff was-capable.
6. In an action for negligence whereby plaintiff’s horse was caused' to run away, error- — urged for the first time on appeal — cannot be assigned upon the admission of testimony that plaintiff’s horse was gentle, on the ground that witness did not establish that it was the same horse, where the witness testified it was a horse owned by plaintiff in 1898, and plaintiff testified that the horse which ran away was one owned by him for a. year prior to October, 1898. Any doubt on that subject could have been cleared up on the trial had defendant suggested it. by objection.
7. Plaintiff, a groceryman forty-five years of age, received injuries involving great suffering for several months, and which left him a hopeless cripple, condemned to crutches for life. Held,. that a verdict of $8,000 was not excessive.
Marshaix, X, dissenting, is of the opinion:
(a) The rule, that on appeal error is not presumed, goes-only to prevent consideration of matters not appearing upon, the record, not in minimizing error which does appear.
(b) Error appearing on the record is presumed to have been-prejudicial unless the contrary appears beyond reasonable-probability.
(c) Where evidence is improperly admitted, the party duly objecting and excepting may stand upon his rights without further action. He is not called upon to request instructions which will render such evidence harmless or be held to have-waived the error.
(d) An instruction good as an abstract statement of a legal principle, applicable to a case, does not render improper evidence harmless so long as such evidence may, within reasonable probabilities, have been viewed prejudicially.
(e) The rule that lost past profits to a person, as to his-business conducted by a combination of his personal services, or other labor and capital, by a partial or total suspension of" such business, measuring such profits by some reasonable,. definite standard, such as profits realized in the same business before it was wrongfully interfered with, are recoverable of another causing such suspension,- — does not apply to consequential damages caused to a person engaged in such business by reason of his being wrongfully injured so as to be partially or totally disabled from attending to the same as usual, either as an independent element of damage, or as a basis for determining loss sustained by such person being injured in bis earning power.
(f) Profits of a business enterprise, combining capital and labor, do not in any case constitute a legitimate basis for estimating the earning- power of one personally contributing the element of labor, in case of bis being wrongfully injured so as to be unable as usual to furnish such element.
Appeal from a judgment of tlie superior court of. Milwaukee county: J. C. Ludwig, Judge.
Affirmed.
Action for personal injuries suffered as the result of tke runaway of tke korse of plaintiff’s decedent, Damian ILeer, wko was tke original plaintiff, and died after judgment. He will kereinafter be referred to as plaintiff. Tke runaway is claimed to have keen caused by tke negligence of defendant’s employee in suddenly starting its steam roller into operation as tke plaintiff was driving past it. Tke evidence tended to disclose tkat Grand avenue, in Milwaukee, between Nintk and Tentk streets, is a double street, having a driveway of some tkirty-five feet on eack side, and between tke two a park or boulevard of thirty or forty feet in width. Where Tentk street crosses this boulevard, there is at tke intersection a soldiers’ monument. As plaintiff was driving westward on tke north driveway, and some seventy feet before he reached Tentk street, tke defendant’s steam roller, which during tke day had been at work on Tentk street, ortk of Grand avenue, was run southerly across tke driveway, into tke space by tke monument, and stopped. As it went across, it disturbed a team ahead of tke plaintiff, and he stopped and waited until it had become stationary in this space; it having been run in there, not in tke course of rolling tke street, but to wait for tke rest of tke paving gang. After it had stopped, and tke other team had passed on, plaintiff proceeded to drive past it. Just as he got opposite the roller — the horse’s head, and perhaps body, past it — it started northward toward him. TIis horse became frightened and shied, hut he was able to pull it hack into the street, but the roller continued its northward movement toward him, whereupon the horse bolted, became wholly unmanageable, and ran a block to the intersection of Eleventh street, where the wagon was overturned and the plaintiff injured. The jury found, by a special verdict: (1) The injury; (2) the horse was of ordinary gentleness; (3) the steam roller, while standing still, was not calculated to frighten such a horse; (5) the roller, when operated, was naturally calculated to frighten such horse when in such proximity; (6) such likelihood ought to have been known to a person of ordinary intelligence; (7) the roller did frighten plaintiff’s horse; (8) which by reason of such fright got beyond control and ran away; (9) such control was not regained; (10) the steam roller was not stationary when the horse was frightened; (11) it had been stationary just before the plaintiff attempted to cross the intersection of Tenth street; (12) it started up while plaintiff was crossing that intersection; (13) the horse was frightened by such starting up; (14) the employee in charge was negligent in so starting up; (15) such negligence was the proximate cause of the injury; (16) plaintiff was guilty of no want of ordinary care contributing to the injury; (17) damages, $13,500. Defendant moved for nonsuit and for direction of a verdict at the close of all the evidence, and before judgment moved to set aside the special verdict and grant a new trial. All of said motions were denied, except that the plaintiff was required to remit $5,500 from the verdict, which he did, whereupon judgment was entered for $8,000 damages, and costs, from which the defendant appeals.
For the appellant there was a brief by Quarles, Spence & Quarles, and oral argument by W. C. Quarles.
For the respondent there was a brief by Adolph G. Schwefel and Joseph B. Doe, attorneys, and Hoyt, Doe, Umbreit & Olwell, of counsel, and oral argument by Mr. Doe.

Opinion:
Dodge, J.
The first assignment of error argued is upon the refusal of* the court to hold, upon one or other of defendant's motions, that the evidence conclusively established contributory negligence in the plaintiff, and acquitted the defendant of negligence.- Much of the discussion and citation of authority is addressed to situations or conduct which possibly the evidence tended to establish, but which are negatived by the verdict of the jury upon conflicting evidence. We have no doubt that, while certain of the specific findings are controverted by the appellant, the verdict thereon is sustained by the evidence, namely, that the roller was not in course of operation in rolling the street at the time that the plaintiff sought to pass it, but had ceased such work, and was standing stationary outside of the limits of the driveway; that while so standing it was not negligence, in law, to attempt to drive past it; and that (what is specially controverted) the machine was started from a condition of rest and quietude into motion at the moment most likely to frighten a horse near it, namely, when it was slightly behind him. From these facts we are constrained to hold that it cannot be said, as matter of law, that it was not negligent to unexpectedly start such an appliance when a passing horse was within thirty or forty feet of it; and this, too, without at all controverting the proposition that the use of such a roller upon the streets of a city is lawful, and that one who approaches it while in its ordinary employment of being moved back and forth would be presumed to accept the peril of his horse being frightened thereby. We are persuaded that the jury were not trespassing beyond the bounds of reasonable judgment in declaring that the sudden transmutation of such an appliance from stillness and silence into an approach toward a horse, with the necessary accompaniment of noise and escaping steam, was calculated to frighten even a gentle horse, and that, under the duty which rests upon all men to so conduct themselves as not to place others in serious peril, it was negligence to cause this transmutation. We therefore reach the conclusion that no error was committed by the trial court in refusing to hold, as matter of law, either that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, or that the defendant was free from negligence.
The most vigorously debated assignment of error is based upon the admission in evidence of the fact that the average annual profits of plaintiffs business for ten years before his injury had been about $1,500. The question is discussed by the appellant as if this fact had been proved and submitted to the jury as a measure of plaintiff's damages. lie argues with much force and much authority that the net profits of a business involving capital include other items than the mere personal services of the owner, and that they are neither a safe nor a correct measure of the damage resulting to him from mere inability to render such services. 1 Sedgwick, Dam. § 181; 8 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d ed.) 654; Chapman v. Kirby, 49 Ill. 211; Kinney v. Crocker, 18 Wis. 74; Ripon v. Bittel, 30 Wis. 614, 618; Luck v. Ripon, 52 Wis. 196, 200, 8 N. W. 815; Bierbach v. Goodyear R. Co. 54 Wis. 208, 11 N. W. 514. This position may well be conceded, and we should have little doubt that submission to the jury of the profits of this business as the measure of either of plaintiff's earning capacity, or of his damages from personal disablement, would have been erroneous. Examination of the record, however, fails to establish such fact or situation. The plaintiff, as descriptive of the physical and mental labor which he had been able to perform prior to his injury, testified that he conducted this business alone, but for trifling assistance from a boy; doing the buying, selling, etc.; working twelve to fourteen hours per day. lie then proceeded to de scribe the character and magnitude of the business — specifying the articles dealt in, the manner of their purchase — and, having no books, testified that the average stock carried was about $2,000, the average annual sales about $7,000, and the average net profits about twenty per cent, of the sales, or $1,500. The court instructed the jury that the plaintiff could recover in addition to the usual items of expense of treatment, past and future suffering, etc., "the loss of earnings of the plaintiff which he has already suffered, and which you are reasonably certain he will suffer in the future." This appellant concedes to be a correct abstract statement of the law. If further instructions were necessary or proper to guard against misapprehension by the jury of the effect of the evidence above mentioned, the appellant should have made request therefor, without which no error can be assigned upon their absence. The mere admission of the evidence is therefore the only debatable ground of complaint. The authorities — those cited by appellant as well as others — are substantially uniformly to the effect that, as a basis for the jury's ^estimation of damages, evidence may be given to show fully the capacity of plaintiff to labor before his injury, and, if his work consisted in the management of a business, the character and magnitude thereof. Sedgwick, Dam. § 180, 181; 8 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d ed.) 653, 654; Phillips v. L. & S. W. R. Co. L. R. 5 C. P. Div. 280; Ehrgott v. New York, 96 N. Y. 264, 275; Thomas v. U. R. Co. 18 App. Div. 185, 45 N. Y. Supp. 920; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Dale, 76 Pa. St. 47; Hanover R. Co. v. Coyle, 55 Pa. St. 396; Goodhart v. P. R. Co. 177 Pa. St. 1, 16, 35 Atl. 191; Wallace v. P. R. Co. 195 Pa. St. 127, 45 Atl. 685; Alabama G. S. R. Co. v. Yarbrough, 83 Ala. 238, 3 South. 447; Wallace v. W. N. C. R. Co. 104 N. C. 442, 10 S. E. 552; Rio Grande W. R. Co. v. Rubenstein, 5 Colo. App. 121, 38 Pac. 76; Ballou v. Farnum, 11 Allen, 73; Denver v. Sherret, 88 Fed. 226; Kinney v. Crocker, 18 Wis. 74; Ripon v. Bittel, 30 Wis. 614; Luck v. Ripon, 52 Wis. 196, 8 N. W. 815. Many of these cases go-to the exact' proposition that, in thus describing such business, it is competent to piuve the magnitude of the profits therein— not that the jury is to allow any loss of such profits as damages,, but to consider them, with other elements, as descriptive of the amount and grade of the services of which the injured man was capable. When that is ascertained, the jurymen are to-apply their judgment and common knowledge in deciding-what money-earning capacity results from the ability to render such services. This, of course, they may do without the-aid of expert opinions. Blair v. M. & P. du C. R. Co. 20 Wis. 262, 264; Luessen v. Oshkosh E. L. & P. Co. 109 Wis. 94, 85 N. W. 124; Meyer v. Mil. E. R. & L. Co. 116 Wis. 336, 93 N. W. 6. When such money-earning capacity of the-plaintiff, sound, is ascertained, the jury are then ready to ascertain the extent of its impairment by the injury. As we read the record, in light of the rule that all reasonable presumption must be indulged against error (Edwards v. Smith, 48 Wis. 254, 3 N. W. 758), we find nothing to justify the-conclusion that the evidence went any further than is warranted by the rules above stated, namely, to prove the quality,, character, and amount of personal service which plaintiff did perform before the accident; thus distinguishing the case at bar from Bierbach v. Goodyear R. Co. 54 Wis. 208, 11 N. W. 514. True, the court stated, in overruling an objection to the average past profits, and evidently in response to an-argument of appellant's counsel, that such evidence was admitted subject to the rule that other proof "must be brought in to make future profits a measure of damage. He may-have then expected that a claim for loss of prospective profits-as damages was going to be made, but none appears. Plaintiff made no attempt to prove that-the business was less profitable during some months that it continued to run, nor that it might not have run with equal profit thereafter, had plaintiff not decided to sell out. Again, when the case was sub-- mitted to the jury, they were not authorized to allow any damage by reason of lost or diminished profits, but merely the loss of earnings of the plaintiff. They apparently did not adopt $1,500 per annum as a measure of his loss of earnings, for the $13,500 awarded would supply an annuity of only about $900 at plaintiff's age when injured. We conclude that no error affirmatively appears in the admission of this evidence.
These considerations render unnecessary any discussion of appellant's contention that the prospective profits were left by the evidence too uncertain and conjectural. Since, as said above, no such profits were allowed as damages, inadequacy in their proof is not material..
Error is assigned upon admission of testimony that plaintiff's horse was gentle, upon the ground — urged in this court for the first time — that the witness did not establish that it was the same horse. He said it was a horse owned by plaintiff in 1898. Plaintiff testified that the horse which ran away was the one owned by him for a year prior to October, 1898. This was obviously deemed by the court below to establish identity sufficiently to enable the witness to testify. Any doubt on that subject could have been momentarily cleared up, had appellant suggested it by his objection. The error is not, well assigned. '
We cannot say that the $8,000 damages as finally allowed are excessive. The plaintiff, when injured, was in his prime — forty-five years of age — with expectancy of life twenty and one half or twenty-four and one half years, according to different tables. His injuries involved great suffering for several months, and left him a hopeless cripple, condemned to crutches for life. The degree of such disablement was largely evidenced by his own appearance, of which jury and trial judge had advantage. The amount awarded, without deducting that allowed for expenses and suffering, would, at present rates, purchase an annuity of about $570. We cannot say that this would greatly or at all exceed the impairment of his earning capacity, as the jury and trial judge might have believed it to be from the evidence before them.
By {he Oourt. — Judgment affirmed.