Opinion ID: 1994680
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The inadequacy of the verdicts.

Text: The plaintiffs argue that the amounts of the verdicts in their favor are so small that as a matter of law they are inadequate. They therefore conclude that necessarily the refusal of the trial judge to give them a new trial was an abuse of discretion. To be sure, if the jury accepted at its face value the testimony of the plaintiffs, the verdicts conceivably could have been in much larger amounts. However, there was no compulsion upon the jury to do so. It could accept or reject in whole or in part the plaintiffs' testimony and fix the amounts of recovery upon the basis of the portion of the testimony it chose to accept. This apparently was the view the trial judge, who heard and observed the witnesses, took in denying the plaintiffs a new trial and holding that the verdicts were not so grossly inadequate as to shock the conscience. We think the record of this trial supports this conclusion. When this court sits in review of the discretionary acts of trial judges, we will ordinarily not reverse if the trial judge has acted in good faith and with deliberate judgment. Discretionary rulings will not be disturbed unless it clearly appears that they were based on clearly unreasonable or capricious grounds. Larrimore v. Homeopathic Hospital Ass'n of Del., 4 Storey 449, 181 A.2d 573. We find nothing in this record clearly unreasonable or capricious in the denial of a new trial because of inadequacy. The judgment below is affirmed.