Case Name: Ruck, by guardian ad litem, Respondent, vs. Milwaukee Brewery Company, Appellant
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1912-01-30
Citations: 148 Wis. 222
Docket Number: 
Parties: Ruck, by guardian ad litem, Respondent, vs. Milwaukee Brewery Company, Appellant.
Judges: Vinje, J. I concur in the foregoing opinion by Mr. Justice MARSHALL.
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 148
Pages: 222–235

Head Matter:
Ruck, by guardian ad litem, Respondent, vs. Milwaukee Brewery Company, Appellant.
January 11
January 30, 1912.
Master and servant: Latent danger: Failure to warn: Evidence.~ Weight and sufficiency: Question's for jury: Special verdict.Form: Instructions to jury: Trial: Prejudicial proceedings: Excessive damages: Loss of eye.
1. The weight of evidence and the effect of alleged contradictions. and impeachments are matters peculiarly within the province of the jury and not questions of law for the court.
2. The defendant cannot complain of the refusal of the trial court. to submit questions proposed for special verdict in so far as. such refusal constitutes, in effect, a ruling that the evidence upon such questions is insufficient to sustain any claim of the plaintiff.
3. Rejection of questions proposed for special verdict is not error where the matters embraced therein are fully covered by the-questions which are submitted.-
4. In determining whether or not sentences and parts of sentences excepted to in the charge to the jury were incorrect or misleading, they must be considered and interpreted in connection with the other parts of the charge and the questions in the special verdict to which they were directed.
5. Recalling the jury immediately after they had retired, and stating that upon request of plaintiff’s counsel the court would instruct them as to the burden of proof, was not in this case a proceeding prejudicial to defendant, although the court had refused, in the presence of the jury, to instruct as requested by defendant’s counsel upon the burden of proof.
6. Refusal to give a requested instruction is not error where the material parts thereof are included in the instructions given, which fully cover the questions submitted to the jury.
7. An award of $7,000 for injuries to a boy under seventeen years of age, resulting in the loss of one eye, impairment of the sight of the other, and disfigurement by reason of inability to wear an artificial eye, is held not so excessive as to warrant interference by this court. Maeshall and Yinjb, JJ., dissent.
Appeal from a judgment of tbe circuit court for Milwaukee county-: W. J. TueNee, Circuit Judge.
Affirmed.
Tbe plaintiff, sixteen years and nearly five-months of age, on July 3, 1907, while employed in the bottling department of the brewery of the defendant, received an injury by being struck in the eye by a piece of glass from an exploding bottle. The injury resulted in the loss of the eye. A statement of the findings of the jury upon this trial, in addition to the statement of facts contained in the report of the case on a former appeal (144 Wis. 404, 129 N. W. 414), is all that' is necessary to fully present the facts of the case.
The jury found that the plaintiff was directed by the foreman to assist in “piling out” bottles of beer from the steam tank to the trays in which they were carried to the labeling machine; that there was a latent danger that the bottles, after being taken from the steam tanks and set upon the trays, would explode, while they were standing still, without the application of any external force to the bottles; that the defendant had knowledge prior to the time of injury of the latent danger ; that the defendant negligently failed to warn the plaintiff of tbe latent danger, and that snob negligence was the proximate cause of the injury; that the plaintiff did not in the exercise of ordinary care know of the danger; that the explosion which caused the injury was not produced by the bottles being struck together by reason of the manner in which the plaintiff performed his work; that the defendant was not guilty of negligence in furnishing the plaintiff with a tray constructed as was the one used by him; and that no failure on the part of the plaintiff to exercise ordinary care contributed in any degree to produce his injury. The jury also agreed upon $7,000 as the sum which would reasonably compensate the plaintiff for his injuries. This is an appeal from the judgment on the verdict.
For the appellant there was a brief by Doe & Ballhorn, and oral argument by J. B. Doe.
For the respondent there was a brief by Gliclcsman, Gold & Corrigan, and oral argument by W. L. Gold.

Opinion:
The following opinion was filed January 30, 1912:
Siebecker, J.
The former decision in this case on appeal to this court declared the rules applicable to the facts at issue between the parties and must control in the determination of the questions presented.
The verdict is assailed upon the ground that the evidence does not sustain the findings of the jury. In substance, we find the state of the evidence not unlike that on the former appeal, wherein it was held that it presented a jury question. 144 Wis. 404, 129 N. W. 414. The contention is however made that the evidence of plaintiff and of the witnesses who testified on the subject of the alleged danger from the explosions of bottles after being placed on the tray at rest and protected from external force, and on the subject of defendant's want of care as to knowing of such danger and warning employees thereof, differs from the facts on the former trial in that it is so unreasonable, contradictory, and unreliable that it furnishes no basis for any inferences to be drawn by the jury. The argument is made that the contradictions in this evidence are so manifold and the other forms of its impeachment are so destructive of its probative force that the former holding of its sufficiency cannot control. This position is not tenable. The weight of the evidence adduced and the effect of the alleged contradictions and impeachments are matters peculiarly within the province and functions of a jury, and their duties in this regard cannot be assumed as questions of law by the court.
It is urged that the court erred in rejecting twenty-one of the twenty-three questions submitted by the defendant as part of the special verdict. The special verdict submitted by the court is correct. It embraces the questions of the ultimate issuable facts presented by the pleadings and the evidence, and the findings in response thereto by the jury establish a complete cause of action and good ground for a judgment determining the rights of the parties as litigated upon the trial.
It is however claimed that the defendant was prejudiced by the rejection of these questions because they pertain to issues of fact raised by the pleadings and concerning which evidence had been adduced. In so far as these proposed questions cover inquiries that are not part of the issues embraced in the verdict actually rendered it cannot be prejudicial, because in effect the court's rejection thereof constitutes a ruling that the evidence material thereto was insufficient to sustain any claim of the plaintiff and hence is a ruling in appellant's favor. Do any of the rejected questions form part of the issues embraced in the verdict rendered which are not properly included and passed upon by the verdict of the jury? From a study and examination 'of the requested questions we find that the only special issue of fact calling for submission in connection with the ultimate issues embraced in the verdict was an inquiry as to whether or not the explosion and consequent injury to the plaintiff was caused by the bottles being struck together through the plaintiff's manner of performing his work, and this the court submitted by question -8 of the verdict. We find no error in the rejection of the questions, proposed.
Exceptions are taken to certain sentences and portions of sentences .of the instructions to the jury. We have examined them and find they were correct and that they contained nothing misleading when interpreted in connection with the other parts of the charge and the questions in the verdict to which they were directed.
Immediately after the jury retired, the court recalled them to the court room at the request of the plaintiff's counsel and stated that upon the request of plaintiff's counsel he would instruct them as to the burden of proof in the case, and proceeded.to do so. It is urged that this was a prejudicial proceeding. The statement by the court that he recalled the jury at the request of plaintiff's counsel, after having refused in their presence to instruct as requested by defendant's counsel, cannot be said to have operated prejudicially upon the jury under the circumstances. Recalling the jury was a plain duty of the court, and we discover nothing improper in the court's manner of performing it.
Nor do we discover anything prejudicially erroneous in the court's charge defining negligence, or in the statements of the claims of the respective parties under the evidence; The instructions given fully cover the questions in the verdict, were correct, and contained.the material and essential parts of the rejected requests to instruct.
A number of detailed exceptions to rulings on evidence are urged upon us as erroneous, because several witnesses were permitted to testify on redirect examination on the matter in their examinations on the former trial, and because the court improperly permitted cross-examination of the defendant's. witnesses on matters not touched upon in tbeir direct examination. The points referred to in these examinations were-relevant and material to the questions litigated, and the evidence adduced was competent. We find nothing to show that the court unduly extended the scope of the inquiries or the-privilege of cross-examination to such an extent as to elicit, facts not covered in direct examination.
T-he award of damages is assailed as excessive. It appears that plaintiff's eye had to be removed. The plaintiff testifies-that he suffered considerable pain from the treatment and operation, that he is unable to wear an artificial eye, that the afflicted side of his face is somewhat diminished in size- and exhibits the disfigurement resulting from the vacant eye socket, that he has pains in this region of his face, and that the sight of the other eye is not as good as before the injury.. The fact that plaintiff is young in years makes the injury and damage greater than if it had occurred to him in a later period of his life. True, as appellant claims, this court limited the-recovery in Olwell v. Skobis, 126 Wis. 308, 105 N. W. 777, for the loss of an eye to $6,000; yet it cannot be held that-such a sum is to be regarded as the maximum amount for injuries of this nature. In the very nature of things the amount which will compensate a person for an injury which must attend him through life cannot be measured by strict and definite rules and must be left largely to the sound judgment of a jury, and the trial judge. Another case illustrative of this subject is the ease of Coolidge v. Hallauer, 126 Wis. 244, 105 N. W. 568, wherein the jury awarded $7,000 to an. operator of a button machine, twenty-eight years of age, as compensation for the loss of an eye. Though exception had been taken to the amount as excessive, it was not urged that, it was excessive upon appeal to this court, and we must con-cludé that the parties did not regard this amount as excessive for such an injury. The trial court in this case approved the award of the jury as reasonable and just. We do not con sider that this court should, as matter of law, hold the amount awarded to be unreasonable and excessive.
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.
The following opinion was filed March 4, 1912: