Court Opinion

ID: 9655837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:23:19.889097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:22.393731
License: Public Domain

LAMBERT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I am now of the opinion that our decision in Burns v. Level, Ky., 957 S.W.2d 218 (1998), to the extent that it mandated the result here, was erroneous. I qualify my view because the precise holding in Bums was that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting a directed verdict upon the unitemized damages. Contrary to the assertion in the majority opinion, Bums did not hold that such a result should occur in every case.
It is widely acknowledged that our purpose in prohibiting recitation of sums alleged as damages in the prayer for relief is to prevent public notoriety of shocking, outrageous claims which may bear little relationship to the actual damages sustained. To accommodate a defendant, CR 8.01 authorizes the use of interrogatories to obtain disclosure of the amount actually sought. For failure to answer interrogatories, a party may move, under CR 37 .04, for an order compelling answers. No motion to compel was made in this case.
The effect of the majority opinion will be to bury a landmine in civil litigation where*274by a party may propound the interrogatories and thereafter sit silently by hoping the opposing party will, through inadvertence or neglect, fail to timely answer. A hard and fast rule prohibiting recovery of damages for failure to answer damages interrogatories will inevitably lead to a miscarriage of justice, as in the instant case. A far better approach would be to leave the remedy for failure to answer interrogatories to the sound discretion of the trial judge. The perspective of the trial judge with respect to analyzing prejudice, unfair surprise, and generally allocating responsibility is far superior to that of any appellate court. Unfortunately, we have abolished trial court discretion in this regard and announced an inflexible rule that will surely result in injustice.
KELLER, J., joins this dissenting opinion.