Opinion ID: 1241105
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instruction as to Impairment of Earning Capacity.

Text: The trial court submitted but one question in the special verdict inquiring as to the plaintiff's damages. Such question read as follows: What amount of damages did the plaintiff, Ella Behringer, sustain by reason of said collision? In instructing the jury with respect to the elements comprising the damages to be taken into consideration in answering such question, the learned trial court stated one of such elements to be the plaintiff's ability to make earnings which she has lost by reason of the disability resulting from said injuries, which is the difference, due to the injury, between  her earning capacity before the injury and her earning capacity after the injury. Such instruction had been requested by plaintiff's attorneys. There can be no question but that this was a proper instruction if there was any evidence in the record tending to establish an impairment of earning capacity due to the collision. Dietz v. Goodman (1950), 256 Wis. 370, 374, 41 N. W. (2d) 208, and Restatement, 4 Torts, p. 631, sec. 924, and comment d, pp. 634, 635. The difficulty is that we are unable to find any evidence in the record which would support the giving of such instruction. The plaintiff was born August 20, 1924, and was thirty years of age at the time of the accident. She was married and the mother of two small children. Prior to the accident she had been employed on a part-time basis in a beauty parlor at an average weekly wage of $15. She resumed such work on December 14, 1954, and there is no evidence but that her earnings were as high subsequent to such resumption of her employment as they had been prior to the accident. She continued to work at such part-time employment until August, 1955. She then stopped working, not because of her injuries, but to care for her children. Thereafter, she operated her own beauty shop in her home under the name of Ella's Rib Mountain Beauty Shop. Construing the evidence relating to the permanency of plaintiff's injuries most favorably to her, such injuries are a two-inch scar extending downward from the outer corner of the right eye; an inch-and-a-half scar extending upward from the same corner of the eye; a numb area above the right eye; a watering and twitching of the right eye; a probable injury to the bursa of the right knee which causes this area to hurt when the plaintiff kneels upon it; and a residual from a fracture of the left thumb which causes the thumb to hurt when heavy objects are lifted. These results were all present during  the three years and one month which elapsed between the plaintiff's resumption of work on December 14, 1954, and the date of trial. If any of such permanent injuries were going to impair the plaintiff's earning capacity, such impairment most likely would have manifested itself during such period. In the absence of any evidence that such impairment so occurred, it was error to have given the instruction complained of. This court has held that a jury should not be permitted to speculate as to the amount of future expense of medical treatment it should award as damages in the absence of any evidence as to the probable cost of the same, and that it was reversible error to instruct the jury that it might consider such an item in awarding a lump sum as damages. La Fave v. Lemke (1958), 3 Wis. (2d) 502, 509, 89 N. W. (2d) 312. We deem that the principle of such holding is applicable to the instant situation. A case directly in point on this issue is Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Deal (1941), 66 Ga. App. 211, 17 S. E. (2d) 592, in which the trial court gave a charge similar in nature to that here being considered, and there was evidence that the plaintiff had sustained a permanent injury to his hand. The court held the instruction to have been erroneous, and declared (p. 214): In this case the plaintiff at the time of the trial was engaged in the same work as at the time of the injury. There was no evidence whatever going to show that his earning capacity in that business, or in any other work in which he could engage, was diminished because of his injury. The charge complained of was error, and the court erred in overruling the motion for new trial. A later Georgia case in which this same rule was applied is Western & Atlantic Railroad v. Hart (1957), 95 Ga. App. 810, 99 S. E. (2d) 302.  We have no difficulty in finding the erroneous instruction in question to have been prejudicial. The plaintiff's special damages for loss of earnings between September 12, 1954, and December 14, 1954, and for damage to her clothing approximated the sum of $265, leaving $9,000 of the total damages of $9,265 awarded to apply against pain and suffering, permanent injuries, and impairment of earning capacity. We cannot assume that the jury did not include in such $9,000 figure something for impairment of earning capacity. Because we hold this instruction to have been prejudicial as well as erroneous, a new trial must be directed upon the issue of damages.