Court Opinion

ID: 9631595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:44:06.09835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:05.237911
License: Public Domain

SADLER, Justice (dissenting in part). Taking notice of the attack made on the verdict as being excessive and the result of passion and prejudice, the prevailing opinion states: “At first glance the verdict does seem over liberal, but we can not say it is so arbitrary as to show passion and prejudice nor can we say as a matter of law that the verdict is excessive.” First, let me say at the outset that what is said in the prevailing opinion touching our right to consider the presence of passion and prejudice in the verdict, notwithstanding the trial judge may have given it his approval in denying a motion for new trial, meets with my entire approval. It seems plain, for reasons so well stated in the majority opinion, that we went too far in Padilla v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 61 N.M. 115, 295 P.2d 1023, in accepting the federal decisional law on the subject as binding upon us in this class of cases. I must disagree, however, with the conclusion announced in the quotation from the majority opinion, set out above, that we cannot say as a matter of law this verdict is excessive. It impresses me that it is. Under our Workmen’s Compensation Law, the plaintiff would have received for the complete loss of an arm at or near the shoulder 160 weeks’ compensation at $30 per week, or $4,800. This is not to say the present plaintiff should be confined to that sum, or to an amount even approximating it. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between the amount so allowed by the legislature for the complete loss of an arm in an industrial accident and the present verdict cannot fail to contrast in the mind either the miserliness of the one award or the excessiveness of the other. It may even generate in the mind a thought the one is as excessive as the other is niggardly. At all events, giving due weight to different factors to be considered, it impresses me there is common ground between the two extremes which, occupied by the jury in its deliberations, will be more in line with reason and fairness, and tend to eliminate the showing of passion and prejudice noticeable in this verdict. It is to enable a jury to arrive at that happy medium that I favor reversing the judgment reviewed and remanding this case for a new trial. Compare, Turrietta v. Wyche, 54 N.M. 5, 212 P.2d 1041; Hisaw v. Hendrix, 54 N.M. 119, 215 P.2d 598, 22 A.L.R.2d 285 ; Frei v. Brownlee, 56 N.M. 677, 248 P.2d 671; Boydston v. Twaddell, 57 N.M. 22, 253 P.2d 312; Thompson v. Anderman, 59 N.M. 400, 285 P.2d 507; Stoll v. Galles Motor Co., 60 N.M. 186, 289 P.2d 626. The majority concluding otherwise, I dissent.