Opinion ID: 1372470
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: adequacy and regularity of the verdict

Text: The jury's determination of the amount of damages is inviolate absent an award which is so excessive or inadequate as to shock the judicial conscience and to raise an irresistible inference that passion, prejudice, or other improper cause had invaded the trial. Lane v. Gorman, 10th Cir., 347 F.2d 332 (1965); Fitzsimonds v. Cogswell, Wyo., 405 P.2d 785 (1965); Pan American Petroleum Corporation v. Like, Wyo., 381 P.2d 70 (1963). Appellant points to testimony that he had a 35 to 40 percent permanent disability of the body as a whole as a result of the injury; to testimony that the injury necessitated the fusion of four vertebrae in his lower back and the probability of further surgery; to testimony relative to severe pain and suffering attendant to the injury and to the treatment of it; and to testimony of payment of $7,800 for medical expenses incurred as a result of the injury. From these things, he asks us to conclude that the award was inadequate. We repeat that which we said in Oroz v. Hayes, Wyo., 598 P.2d 432, 434 (1979): All of these things were presented to, and considered by, the jury. Appellant does not refer to any evidence of passion or prejudice on the part of the jury. He does not refer to any other improper action or persuasion which invaded the trial. He does not point to an inconsistency or conflict in, or resulting from, the award itself. He does not indicate a failure on the part of the jury to follow instructions. He simply contends that the award was too small. Such, without more, is insufficient for reversal on appeal. Ries v. Cheyenne Cab & Transfer Company, 53 Wyo. 104, 79 P.2d 468 (1938); and Valdez v. Glenn, 79 Wyo. 53, 330 P.2d 309, reh. den. 79 Wyo. 53, 64, 332 P.2d 1119 (1958). `As a rule, a verdict in an action for a personal tort may be set aside as inadequate when, and only when, it is so inadequate as to indicate passion, prejudice, partiality, or corruption, or that the jury disregarded the instructions of the court, or in some instances, where there was a vital misapprehension or mistake on the part of the jury, or where it clearly appears from uncontradicted evidence that the amount of the verdict bears no reasonable relation to the loss suffered by the plaintiff, or, according to some of the cases, where, otherwise, there has been an evident failure of justice to the plaintiff. Generally, a verdict will not be disturbed merely on account of the smallness of the damages awarded or because the reviewing court would have awarded more.' 22 Am.Jur.2d Damages § 398. The trial judge and jury heard all of the evidence. There was considerable evidence relative to appellant's employment and income since receiving the injury and relative to his activities and marriage subsequent to the injury. The jury fixed the amount of the award. Appellant presented his contentions concerning the inadequacy of it to the trial judge in briefs and in argument on his motion for a new trial. In denying the motion, the trial judge found that    the verdict which was returned by the jury at the conclusion of the Trial of this matter was a conclusion to which honest jurors, acting fairly and intelligently in the light of their experience and knowledge of human affairs, might come   . The court rendered judgment in the verdict. We find no reason to disturb it. Affirmed.