Court Opinion

ID: 9532528
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:22:05.44295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:46.588321
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring specially in favor of allowing future damages).
I am in accord with the principal holding of the main opinion that the jury verdict should be reinstated. However, it strikes a discord in my thinking to reject the future damages on the ground that it involves “speculation and conjecture.” In one sense, of course practically everything in life involves conjecture as to the future. No one is sure he will be alive next week. Yet experience is such that we do not deem it unreasonable to assume that he will be. The law does not and cannot require absolute certainty. If we can predict circumstances with reasonable certainty, that is a sufficient foundation upon which to base our plans and actions. The traditionally accepted'test of the law is that a fact may be found if reasonable minds may believe it by a preponderance, or greater weight of the evidence. This means that if it can reasonably be believed that it is more probable than not, or that it will with reasonable certainty occur, a finding of such fact is justified.1 That is the test to apply in determining whether the evidence will support an award of future damages. '
If we justify the finding of damages up to the time the error in listing was corrected, as the main opinion correctly does, it would be highly unrealistic to assume that the very next day the plaintiff’s business would bounce right back to what it would have been had the failure to list his name not occurred. It would naturally take some reasonable time to adjust to what it normally would have been had the telephone listing been correctly maintained. For that reason, even though it may involve some degree of uncertainty, I think a reasonable view of the situation dictates the conclusion that at least some future damage was in fact suffered just as surely as past damages were caused.
I am also in accord with the idea expressed in the main opinion, that where substantial damage is shown to have resulted from the breach of a duty, the fact *196that the injured person may have difficulty in proving the amount of his damage should not redound to the benefit of the wrongdoer. Rather than conferring an advantage upon him, doubts should be resolved in favor of compensating the injured person for his injury. The best way to approach making such recompense is as quoted in the opinion of the court from the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Virginia v. Carless, “We can see no objection to placing before the jury all of the facts and circumstances of the case having any tendency to show damages, * * * so as to enable them to make the most intelligible and probable estimate which the nature o.f the case will admit.”
It does not seem to me that we can say that the finding that future damages would be incurred is unsupported by substantial evidence or that it transgresses reason. That being so, we should not disturb the jury’s finding even though we may feel that our own judgment is better. That privilege is given to the jury under our system of law, and so long as there is any substantial .support in the evidence upon which .to base their findings, without entirely departing from reason, it should be permitted to stand.
I would reinstate the verdict of the jury as indicated by Justice WORTHEN, but would also affirm an award of a reasonable sum as future damages.