Opinion ID: 1445518
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Hypothetical Wife and Children

Text: In Rohlfing v. Moses Akiona, Ltd., 45 Haw. 373, 393, 369 P.2d 96, 106 (1961), this court declared the necessity of reducing an award to a decedent's estate for loss of excess earnings in such a way as to eliminate the expenditures for decedent's own cost of living and the care of his family and dependents. With this caveat in mind, the appellees introduced evidence at trial, over the appellant's objection, that the decedent, had he lived, would probably have married and had two children, and that the cost of maintaining this hypothetical family over his life expectancy would have eliminated his excess earnings. The appellant contends that the circuit court's failure to exclude this evidence and to instruct the jury that it could not properly consider the effect of maintaining a hypothetical family upon a decedent's probable net excess earnings resulted in a disproportionately low jury award. The appellees counter by urging that speculation is inevitable when excess earnings are at issue. They point to numerous instances in the record where the appellant resorted to such speculation in establishing the decedent's probable level of future income. They argue additionally that the circuit court's instruction to the jury did not require the jury to deduct the cost of maintaining a hypothetical wife and two children from the excess earnings credited to the decedent's estate. The appellee's arguments, however, misconceive the injunction of the Rohlfing case. Under Rohlfing, support money actually awarded to a widow or children under HRS § 663-3 must be deducted from the excess earnings to be credited under HRS § 663-7 to the decedent's estate, in order to prevent a double recovery by the decedent's dependents and heirs. But there can be no double recovery by a widow or by children who do not in fact exist. To deduct the cost of maintaining a hypothetical family from the award to which a decedent's estate is entitled would give a windfall to the defendant and literally make it cheaper to kill a single man than a married man with a family. Such a course of action is inconsistent with the policies articulated in Rohlfing. I would hold that in connection with the award under HRS § 663-7 it was error for the circuit court to permit the jury to consider the cost of maintaining a hypothetical family. On the other hand, under HRS § 663-3 the jury awarded $30,000 to the appellant for pecuniary injury and loss of love and affection. This sum has been paid. Of course, there is no way of knowing how much of it, if any, was to compensate for pecuniary injury, i.e., loss of support, and how much was to compensate for loss of love and affection. In any event, retrial of the appellant's claim under HRS § 663-7, which would be the only claim to be retried, poses no threat of double recovery; whatever sum the trier of fact finds would have been spent by the decedent in support of the appellant will by definition be excluded from the measure of probable net excess earnings.