Court Opinion

ID: 9674239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:25:23.738421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:26.319025
License: Public Domain

OSBORN, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur and agree with all of Justice Barajas’ opinion. I write as to one issue which he did not need to address but an issue which has been raised by the Appellant. Were the damages as found by the jury in this case reduced to present value?
Appellant argues that the jury’s verdict resulted from a calculation like this:
$6.00 per hour wage rate
40 hours per week
= $240.00 per week in wages
52 weeks per year
= $12,480.00 wages per year
19 years (Plaintiff age 46 to 65)
= $237,120.00 Total Damages
It is suggested that the jury award the total damages with no discount for present cash value.
Our courts are in agreement that damages for losses that will occur in the future must be discounted at the time of the judgment. That was the message from The United States Supreme Court in Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Pfeifer, 462 U.S. 523, 103 S.Ct. 2541, 76 L.Ed.2d 768, (1983). The Court wrote:
‘[I]n all cases where it is reasonable to suppose that interest may safely be earned upon the amount that is awarded, the ascertained future benefits ought to be discounted in the making up on the award.’
Id. at 536-37, 103 S.Ct. at 2550.
This discount includes damages for lost earning capacity. Westbrook v. General Tire and Rubber Co., 754 F.2d 1233 (5th Cir.1985); Culver v. Slater Boat Co., 722 F.2d 114 (1983).
In Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. v. Kimbrell 160 Tex. 542, 334 S.W.2d 283 (Tex.1960), the Court recognized that the proper measure of damages under the F.E.L.A. for the loss of future benefits “is the present value thereof.” Id. at 285. The Court said “In our practice, while the jury must assess damages to accrue in the future on the basis of their amount if paid now in cash, still no evidence of the earning power of money must be introduced.” Id. In effect, the Court concluded that the jury knows and therefore can take judicial knowledge of interest rates and then determine a proper discount.
I conclude the Court was wrong on both counts. Perhaps in 1960, interest rates fluctuated very little. That is not true anymore. Every adult alive has seen interest rates go from 6 or 8 percent to 18 percent and now back to 2.5 or 18 percent depending on whether you use the rate paid by a bank on a checking account or the rate paid by a consumer on a credit card account. What is the rate today? Prime is 6 percent. Is that the rate jurors use to calculate a discount? Who knows? And if it is, how many jurors know the prime rate at any given time? Not many.
Even if we assume that 12 jurors know the proper rate on the day they begin their deliberation, are we to assume they can apply that rate to arrive at the cost of an annuity to pay a given sum over a given period of time? The Justices on the Supreme Court certainly made that assumption in 1960. I would not make that assumption today. In C & H Nationwide, Inc. v. *900Thompson, 37 Tex.Sup.Ct.J. 149, 155, 1993 WL 433421 (Tex.1993), the Court in the opinion by Justice Hecht said:
Present value is not simply a judgment call by the jury but a mathematical calculation.
In this case, as in that one, there is no evidence from which to calculate present value.
If the court instructs the jury to find the amount of damages “if paid now in cash” should it not require proof upon which that determination can be made? If pain and suffering are submitted, there must be some evidence, if lost wages are submitted, there must be some evidence. Why should an instruction telling the jury to do a certain thing (reduce to cash value) not also require proof?
The solution, it seems to me, is to ask the jury to find future damages with no instruction to reduce the amount to present cash value and then, after the verdict is returned, let the trial judge, based upon discount rates and annuity tables presented to the judge, reduce the future damages to present value in the final judgment. See 28 TEX.JuR.3d, Damages, § 292 (1993); 3 Am.JuR., Proof of Facts, (1959) Appendix Fig. 11-14. That seems to be a better solution than requiring a plaintiff to present expert testimony in every case or doing as we now do and permit the jury to speculate on a matter it is not qualified to decide and without adequate instructions from the trial court.