Opinion ID: 1238457
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instruction as to Present Value of Future Suffering.

Text: The court, in Instruction No. 24, instructed the jury as to compensation for pain and suffering as follows: You are further instructed that there is no fixed standard as to any amount to allow for pain and suffering. That is to be guided by your good judgment. You should carefully consider the testimony in the case and see what you think the pain and suffering, if any, of the plaintiff are worth. The instruction does not distinguish between past and future pain and suffering, and so must be considered as including both. It is contended that the court should have instructed to reduce future suffering to present value. An annotation on the subject is contained in 28 A.L.R. 1177; see also 154 A.L.R. 801. Some of the courts seem to regard such an instruction proper, but we do not find that failure to give it, especially in the absence of an instruction asked, is reversible error. There is no standard by which such future pain and suffering may be measured, so it is difficult to see how a reduction to present value may be made. In Chicago & Northwestern Ry Co. v. Candler, 283 F. 881, 28 A.L.R. 1174, it was held that an instruction to reduce future pain and suffering to present worth was properly refused. In Pennsylvania, the courts have steadily adhered to the rule that present worth has no applicability to future pain and suffering, and to give an instruction that it should be so reduced is erroneous. Yost v. West Penn. Ry., 336 Pa. 407, 9 A (2d) 368; Renner v. Sentle, 151 Pa. Super. 231, 30 A. (2d) 220. To the same effect in Louisville N.R. Co. v. Bean, 49 Ga. App. 4, 174 S.E. 209. In the annotation covering this subject in 154 A.L.R. 809, it is stated that the weight of authority is against the reduction of damages such as here considered to the present worth. Counsel further complain that the instruction made no reference to mortality tables. While it might have been better to refer to them directly, the court directed the jury to carefully consider the testimony in the case. The mortality tables were introduced in evidence and may, in a broad sense, well be considered as part of the testimony in the case. Furthermore, the court directed the jury's attention to the mortality tables in another connection, as will be noted presently, so that the jury could not fail to take them into consideration. The objections here considered are overruled.