Court Opinion

ID: 9680260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:27:41.785603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:27.291431
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, concurring in part; dissenting in part. I agree with the majority opinion entirely up to the point of affirming the trial court’s reduction of the amount awarded for loss of consortium and there we part company. The same principles govern the damages awarded Mrs. Floy Lowe for her loss as govern the damages awarded to Larone Lowe for his injuries and yet the majority opinion in effect approves one and disapproves the other with no satisfactory explanation. This action flies full in the face of Ark Stat. Ann. § 27-1903 (Repl. 1979), inasmuch as the trial judge made a finding that the verdicts were not the result of passion or prejudice. As recently as March we reaffirmed the settled law that a jury verdict which does not shock the conscience of the court should not be reduced. Scheptman v. Thorn, 272 Ark. 70, 612 S.W. 2d 291 (1981). My conscience is not shocked in the least by the amount awarded to Mrs. Lowe under the circumstances of this case. Her husband was grossly disfigured and permanently disabled as the result, not of negligent acts, but of calculated and intentional acts. To suggest that her loss was confined to the four or five months she slept alone while her husband was hospitalized and recuperating ignores both the evidence and common experience. I respectfully dissent from the part of the opinion. Adkisson, C.J. and Hickman, J., join in this concurrence and dissent.