Court Opinion

ID: 9809521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:16:14.04741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:35:54.988291
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.,
concurring: While I concur in the judgment of the court that there must be a new trial for the misdirection of his Honor on the issue of dam*975ages, I do not see why the testimony as to the number of the children of the deceased might not be competent in one aspect, to show the value of her material services. His Honor instructed the jury: “You can consider the' number of her infant children and their ages only so far as that shows the jury her opportunity for effort, and helps them to put a pecuniary value on the intellectual and moral training that she might be able to give them while they were infants and under her care. This was clearly error, on account of the impossibility of adopting any adequate standard for the measurement of the pecuniary value of such training.
If by intellectual training was meant her capacity to impart to them the ordinary instruction given to chi 1-dren, and thus save the expense of sending them to school, it might be competent under the proper restriction; but it is entirely too general as given. Moral training is still further beyond the reach of human calculation, as it is infinite in its tendencies and may be so in its results The law will not attempt to give compensation for such a loss, not because it is not real and substantial, but because it is irreparable and incalculable. We have no scales by which to measure the value of a pure Christian mother, and the moral influence she may have upon her children. But her capacity to minister to their material wants can be determined, and adequate compensation given in pecuniar} damages. If she was able to feed, clothe and shelter a large family of children by her own industry, to cook and wash for them and make their garments, I do not see why these facts, if they are facts, would not be competent evidence of her earning capacity. If she did that for which she would otherwise have been compelled to pay, she earned that money by saving it just as much as she *976would have done had it been paid to her. The compensation of all employees is graded by the amount and value of the services they render. A seamstress who can make two garments in a day is worth twice as much as she who can make but one; and the cook who can properly prepare meals for a large family is worth much more than one who is never ready, and whose work is never finished. What a woman has done is the best criterion of what she can do. This is not upon the theory that the value of her services is multiplied by the wants of her children, but upon the idea that, if she could supply the temporal wants of six children, she could provide twice as well for three. What might support six lives would be abundance for them, and give them perhaps some little luxuries. In such cases the court should carefully instruct the jury for what purpose this evidence was admitted, and that it could be considered only in determining the net pecuniary value of the services of the deceased, irrespective of the number of the beneficiaries among whom such services might have been divided.
It is urged in behalf of the defendant that such evidence might prejudice the jury, and cause them to render a verdict in accordance with their sympathies and contrary to their judgment and their oath. I can only say that the jury are an inherent part of the court, to whose honesty and intelligence is committed the determination of such questions of immemorial usage and express constitutional mandate. Peculiarly representing the body of the people — the country — they surely would have sense enough to know that their duty was to measure out equal and exact justice and not generosity, and integrity enough to feel that they could put their hands in their own pockets to relieve the wants of *977the poor, but must not touch with an unlawful hand what belonged to another. If they should render a dishonest verdict surely the court could be trusted to set it aside. I think that the error consisted not in the mere admission of the evidence, but in the erroneous instruction of his Honor as to the purpose for which it might be considered.