Opinion ID: 1938319
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Heading: Damages for loss of services.

Text: Defendants contend trial court erred in permitting the jury to consider loss of services to the three adult children as elements of damages and erred in failing to give defendants' requested instruction that the jury should not award damages for sentiment, grief, or loss of companionship. They assert the amount awarded for loss of services and support was excessive and should have been set aside or modified by remittitur. We summarily treat the last prong of defendants' complaint first. The verdicts were lump-sum amounts presumably incorporating the several damage elements. Defendants made no request for separate special verdicts under Iowa R.Civ.P. 205. See Team Central, Inc. v. Teamco, Inc., 271 N.W.2d 914, 925 (Iowa 1978). Defendants instead attempted to prove by the jury foreman's affidavit the separate sum the jury computed for loss of services and support and incorporated in the lump-sum verdict. We are not persuaded the verdict may be so explained. See Cavanaugh v. Jepson, 167 N.W.2d 616, 624-25 (Iowa 1969); State v. Dudley, 147 Iowa 645, 653, 126 N.W. 812, 815 (1910). In any event, this problem may not recur on retrial. Adult children can recover the loss of services and support. Schmitt, 170 N.W.2d at 664-65; see Robeson v. Dilts, 170 N.W.2d 408, 416 (Iowa 1969). Loss of support and loss of services are separate and distinct items. Adams v. Deur, 173 N.W.2d 100, 107 (Iowa 1969). Contrary to defendants' contention, we find there was sufficient evidence of loss of services to these children to permit the issue to go to the jury. There remains the question whether trial court should have given defendants' requested instruction directing the jury to make no award for sentiment, grief, or loss of companionship. In the context of parent-child relationships, we find no reason to assume the legislature intended loss of services as used in section 613.15, The Code, to have a different meaning from loss of services in former Iowa R.Civ.P. 8. We construed the latter provision to include loss of companionship and society. Wardlow v. City of Keokuk, 190 N.W.2d 439, 448 (Iowa 1971); see Pagitt v. City of Keokuk, 206 N.W.2d 700, 703 (Iowa 1973); W. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts ß 127, at 908 (4th ed. 1971) ([T]here is now a decided tendency to find that the society, care and attention of the deceased are `services' to the survivor with a financial value, which may be compensated.). At the same time, the term does not include grief, mental anguish or suffering, id., and upon retrial the jury should be so instructed.