Court Opinion

ID: 9539654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:07:58.982101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:07.835643
License: Public Domain

Banke, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
1. I do not believe the evidence relied on by Mr. Tigner to establish his claim for future lost earnings was sufficient to enable such damages to be calculated with reasonable certainty. Accordingly, I would hold that the trial court erred in submitting that claim to the jury and would remand the case for a new trial on the issue of damages. I agree with the majority, however, that no ground has been established for a new trial on the issue of liability. Similarly, I find no basis for granting the appellant a new trial on its cross-claims against the other defendants in the case.
The sum total of the evidence relied upon by Mr. Tigner to prove his lost future earnings consisted of (1) his testimony that he had *846supported his family as a musician for the past 20 or 30 years, (2) the fact that he had secured temporary employment with Eastern Airlines the day prior to the accident for a period of 90 days at a wage of $358 per week, and (3) his testimony that he “felt like” he would be allowed to stay on with Eastern as a permanent employee at the end of the 90-day period — an expectation which was, however, exposed as ill-founded by his supervisor at Eastern, who testified that Mr. Tigner and the other temporary employees in the group with which he was hired were terminated as a group at the end of the 90-day period. Conspicuous by its absence was any attempt by Mr. Tigner to provide an estimate of his earnings during the years prior to the accident. His decision in this regard was, however, undoubtedly influenced by his evident failure to file any federal income tax returns for the years in question.
On the basis of the above evidence, Mr. Tigner’s counsel argued to the jury as follows: “The Lord knows I am not trying to say Mr. Tigner was going to eárn $358.00 for the rest of his life. As they pointed out, that was temporary employment, and whether or not he would stay with Eastern I don’t know . . . All we know, he was the bread winner for his family for 20 some odd years. He supported his family, nobody else did. Jim Tigner did. Now he can’t do it anymore. I’m simply suggesting at the minimum $358.00 a week is what he’s worth.”
Lost earnings cannot be recovered unless they are established with reasonable certainty. “The jury must be able to calculate the amount of the loss with such reasonable degree of certainty since, of course, the question of damages cannot be left to guesswork. [Cit.] ” Douglas v. Rinker, 134 Ga. App. 949, 950 (216 SE2d 629) (1975). I do not find any evidence in the present case upon which anything other than a purely speculative estimate of Mr. Tigner’s lost future earnings could be based. While it is true that one need not have worked on an everyday nor even a regular basis to establish a claim for lost future earnings, see Michaels v. Kroger Co., 172 Ga. App. 280 (322 SE2d 903) (1984), some pattern of earnings must certainly be required. I do not believe that a lifetime of future lost earnings can reasonably be calculated on the sole basis of the salary a claimant was earning on the first day of the only steady job he had ever held in the past 20 to 30 years. The cases relied on by the majority, Leonard v. Preferred Risk Mut. Ins. Co., 247 Ga. 574, 575 (1) (277 SE2d 675) (1981), and Hartford Acc. &c. Group v. Adamson, 176 Ga. App. 879, 881 (338 SE2d 867) (1985), do not support a different conclusion, as those cases do not refer to the quantum of proof necessary to authorize the recovery of lost future earnings in a personal injury action, but to the quantum of proof necessary to authorize the quite limited recovery of no-fault insurance benefits available to automobile accident victims as *847compensation for past loss of income or earnings during due to disability. See OCGA § 33-34-4 (a) (2) (B).
Decided October 14, 1986
Rehearing denied November 17, 1986
Kent T. Stair, Alan B. Kyman, Douglas A. Wilde, for appellant.
William C. Lanham, Clark H. McGehee, Gary L. Seacrest, Thomas S. Bentley, Edwin A. Tate II, A. Terry Sorrells, David D. Blum, Marva Jones Brooks, for appellees.
2. In view of the foregoing, I would not reach the issue of whether the trial court was correct in denying the appellant the opportunity to cross-examine Mr. Tigner about his evident failure to file any federal income tax returns for the years immediately preceding the accident. While I am inclined to believe that this line of inquiry was made relevant by Mr. Tigner’s insistence that he had always earned enough money to support his family, it would not be relevant in a retrial in which the issue of lost future earnings was no longer before the jury.
I am authorized to state that Judge Pope joins in this opinion and that Judge Beasley joins in Division 1 of this opinion.