Court Opinion

ID: 9606802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:52:42.442254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:45.360382
License: Public Domain

Flowers, Justice,

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I concur in the result of the majority opinion because the evidence supports the jury’s finding of liability and the amount of the verdict is properly commensurate with the damages suffered by the plaintiff.
I dissent from the implications of the fourth point of the syllabus that a plaintiff may be compensated for impairment of his ability to earn where he does not intend to work.
*330To the extent that syllabus point four authorizes recovery for diminution of earning capacity as a matter of unfettered right when a plaintiff, regardless of his injured status, has no intention of working, it is beyond the facts of this case. The record reflects the assertion of the plaintiff that he intended to return to work as a pipefitter and for this purpose had continued his trade union membership. On the other hand, he acknowledges that he had retired and was receiving social security benefits. The opportunity for the plaintiff to work was established by testimony indicating that a return to this particular occupation after retirement was neither unusual nor impossible and that work was available during plaintiff’s period of recuperation. But for the injury, the plaintiff had the capacity to continue in the trade he had pursued for thirty years. Thus, in the instant case we have some corroboration of the expressed intention to return to work coupled with an opportunity to obtain the work and, but for the injury, a capacity to perform it. Only thus has an award of damages based upon lost wages been spared from reversal as speculatively determined.
The majority opinion admits that “there is no unanimity of thought in court decisions regarding the admissibility of this type of evidence.” This lack of unanimity results from the evaluation on a case by case basis of the speculativeness of the testimony. Compare: Lorenz v. Sowle, 360 Mich. 550, 104 N.W.2d 347 (1960) and Clary v. Breyer, 194 Miss. 612, 13 So.2d 633 (1943).
Intention to work, or perhaps more aptly expressed, a desire to be industrious, is so integrally a part of earning capacity that it cannot be excluded as an evaluating factor. Recovery for diminution of earning capacity is based upon such factors as age, life expectancy, health, habits, occupation, talents, skill, experience, training and industry of the plaintiff as well as his prior mental and physical capacity. Harms v. Ridgeway, 245 Iowa 810, 64 N.W.2d 286 (1954); Annot., 18 A.L.R.3d 88, 105. *331A loss of earning capacity must be established by proper and sufficient evidence. When the plaintiff has suffered a permanent injury, an instruction on diminution of earning capacity is warranted, if it is shown that this result is reasonably certain to occur and ensue from the injury. Jordan v. Bero, W. Va., 210 S.E.2d 618 (1974). The causal relationship between the injury and the loss of earning capacity is critical. It cannot be established with reference to evidence of present wage scales indicating what he might have earned if he had worked. Such a holding would permit a plaintiff to recover lost wages which he never intended to earn.
I am authorized to state that Justice Berry joins in the views expressed in this opinion.