Court Opinion

ID: 9534614
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:41:22.618776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:47.852016
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting in small part, and specially concurring.
Judge May, in authoring his written memorandum decision, had the benefit of having presided throughout the length of the trial, and thereafter on the post-judgment motions. In that regard he was as well positioned as is any trial judge relative to the verdicts returned by the jurors. As with most trial judges of equal experience, Judge May was well aware that the jury would have the opportunity to deliberate and return verdicts which it collectively believed to be just. Likewise, those verdicts might very well be for substantial amounts of compensation. Accordingly, Judge May, or any district judge presiding over a trial of issues such as here presented, is well aware that when the jury function is completed, there will ensue the motions of dissatisfied litigants seeking appropriate relief, most prominent of which will be the claim of an award of excessive damages or of inadequate damages. Did Judge May have this in mind as he presided over the jury trial? Of course he did.
Where I definitely differ from the majority opinion is this paragraph:
We do not believe that the trial judge adequately discussed the findings necessary to make a ruling on the excessiveness of the damages. His mention of the damages that he ‘might have found’ does not give us any indication that he had a definite amount in mind when weighing the question of the damages. There is nothing in his written decision which indicates to us what evidence he weighed and compared in ruling against Curtis’ motion for a new trial.
Op., 123 Idaho 598, 608, 850 P.2d 749, 759.
*612Although not divulged in the courtroom during the course of trial, a trial court is very much concerned with considerations as to the damage amount it conceives to likely be justly and properly awarded by the jury. This Court’s opinion in Dinneen v. Finch and then in Quick v. Crane2 alerted the trial bench to the ever present likelihood that in damage actions it could be called upon to rule on post-trial motions for the grant of a new trial or judgment n.o.v. Moreover, the jury consisting of twelve minds is simultaneously going through the same process. Such being the actual state of affairs, i.e., the jurors arriving at a damages amount, and returning their verdict, it would be an unusual district court that did not perceive at that time how closely, or disparately, its view as to damage awards coincided with the views of the jurors. No speculation is required. The court will have well in mind what it believes to be a fair and sustainable award, and, when the jury is in, the trial court is the one who determines the degree of disparity between its own assessment of damages as compared to that of the jury.
As the majority opinion here suggests, “It may very well be that the trial judge had very similar figures in mind in ruling on the motion [for a new trial], but the record does not reflect on what he may have based that.” Better reasoning, so it seems to me, is that the trial judge was relieved to observe that the jurors had presented him with damage amounts that already were within the range of figures in his mind.
The jury in this case returned a verdict for $275,000 for general damages. Of that amount $50,000 was to compensate Sandra Firth for the batterings dealt her by Carl Curtis over a considerable period of time, which conduct ceased only after Curtis had - evicted her from the residence both had occupied for some time; $225,000 was assessed against Carl Curtis for his conduct consisting of an intentional infliction of severe emotional distress. The jury, in addition to those compensatory damages, assessed the amount of $725,000 in punitive damages. As pointed out in the majority opinion, at trial the jurors in the box had heard extensive expert testimony relative to the battered wife syndrome and also post-traumatic stress disorder.
As to the exemplary damages, basically there is no reason for not indulging in the same reasoning as with compensatory damages. During the past fifteen and more years, the trial courts have ably reached reasonable conclusions; seldom has it been necessary for an appellate court to question the ability of the trial courts and district courts to do the necessary sifting.
Other than for the foregoing observations, I fully concur in the majority opinion and add only the following to support its holding. I agree with Justice Trout’s conclusion to utilize the Corpus Juris Secundum definition of a “continuing tort” and emphatically agree that it is here applicable. Clearly the conduct of Mr. Curtis was a continuing course of conduct which for the greater part was wrongful, but in minuscule part was not wrongful. In totality it appears that Curtis diabolically kept Firth off-balance by alternating between treatment which was kind and treatment which was scurrilous.
I also agree with the definition of a continuing tort theory, which Justice Trout found in Page v. United States, and mention also that footnote 36 at 729 F.2d 823, provides a glossary of other cases which recognize a tolling doctrine of continuous treatment. This doctrine was first enunciated in Borgia v. City of New York, 12 N.Y.2d 151, 237 N.Y.S.2d 319, 187 N.E.2d 777 (1962). Another case in the federal judicial system which factually bears much similarity to Curtis v. Firth is Landman v. Royster, 354 F.Supp. 1302 (E.D.Va.1973). Language in that case which is readily applicable to the conduct of Curtis includes such terms as “phobic injuries; traumatic neurosis; psychic injuries; deliberate efforts to dehumanize; six years of arbi*613trary, illegal and unjust treatment calculated to dehumanize; resultant need of psychiatric care and expenses thereof.”
The United States District Court, Judge Merhige, observed in Landman, that:
Both counsel [for plaintiff and defendant] have adduced expert psychiatric testimony in an effort to show the adverse effects, or lack of them, that may have flowed from continual solitary or isolated confinement. The substance of the testimony is neither contradictory nor surprising: even a lay person could be expected to fairly deduce that the repetitious pattern of treatment to which Landman was subjected would have adverse psychological effects. Nevertheless, a discussion of that testimony is warranted.
Plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Abse, is a psychiatrist with extensive experience in treating released prisoners of war. Specifically, he did much work with British soldiers released after World War II from Japanese prisoner of war camps and has since studied effects of isolated confinement upon civilian prisoners. Based upon his experience, he was able to generalize several typical patterns of reactive behavior, which patterns he labeled as symptomatic of 'Traumatic Neuroses.’ The underlying cause of said behavior, he stated, was repression of emotions caused by isolation, fear and frustration. Symptoms associated with this type of neurosis include anxiety, destructiveness, easy fatigability, diminished sexual potency, as well as psychosomatic illness (including gastric disorders, choking, headaches and backaches).
Dr. Abse personally examined Land-man and concluded thereupon that he possessed these symptoms. He ascribed to Landman’s travails severe physical and phobic injuries which evidenced themselves in the form of traumatic neuroses. While Dr. Abse stated that Land-man undoubtedly had neurotic symptoms prior to incarceration, his incarceration at the Virginia State Penitentiary exacerbated his illness when in fact proper rehabilitation, including psychiatric care, might have cured it. Dr. Abse added that the effects of solitary confinement were aggravated by the diet which was given Landman during those times, i.e., recurring cycles of bread and water for two days, reduced meals a third day.
Interestingly enough, he concluded that solitary confinement beyond a two or three week period would have definite adverse effect upon most people.
Landman, 354 F.Supp. at 1307. Having also heard the testimony of defendant’s expert, Dr. Tice, the court placed it of record in the written opinion:
Defendants’ expert, Dr. Tice, was also eminently qualified. He did not personally examine Landman, but did conclude on the basis of observation of the maximum security and solitary cells that adverse effects caused by confinement therein depended on the relative degree of isolation from human contact in which the prisoners were held. He did admit, however, that such conditions as Land-man was subjected to could have deleterious effects. While he did differ with Dr. Abse on the exact definition of Traumatic Neurosis, he did not in any way specifically contradict Dr. Abse’s medical findings or conclusions. Accordingly, the Court finds as fact that Landman was caused to suffer severe psychic and physical injuries by virtue of the constitutional deprivations to which he was subjected.
Landman, 354 F.Supp. at 1307 (emphasis added).
Judge Merhige concluded that the ultimate person in charge of prison operations was W.H. Cunningham, whose title was Director of the Division of Corrections:
The Court is fully satisfied, despite Cunningham’s denials to the contra, that Landman was indeed treated under direct authority of Cunningham. His constant assertion of legal rights obviously resulted in what Cunningham and other prison administrators considered to be creative of a bad image for the institution. The Court is more than satisfied from the evidence that deliberate efforts under direction of Cunningham were made to de-humanize Landman.
*614The testimony of Dr. Abse has shown that Landman’s psychic disorders resulted from a continual pattern of [misJtreatment.
With respect to the statute of limitations question, the court has found that Landman was subjected to a continual pattern of unconstitutional punishment, the damages for which arise from the cumulative impact of his isolated confinement rather than from individual episodes thereof. The continuous nature of this subjugation after March 1965 brings Landman within the well settled exception of the law of limitations, to-wit: when injury is caused cumulatively by a continuing wrong, the statute of limitations begins to run when the wrongful action ceases. See Baker v. F. & F. Investment et al., 420 F.2d 1191 (7th Cir.1970).
The traumatic neurosis suffered by Landman results not from individualized instances of tortious behavior, but from the continued frustration of six years of arbitrary, illegal and unjust treatment____treatment calculated to dehumanize the man. Indeed, every illegal incident visited upon Landman simply accentuated and aggravated his condition existing immediately prior thereto.
Landman, 354 F.Supp. at 1313-15 (emphasis in original and supplied).
A GLOSSARY OF APPLICABLE TERMS From Roget’s II The New Thesaurus (1984):
Degradation—Degrade. To debase, to demote, to humble.
Debase—To cheapen, to degrade, to demean.
From Webster’s New Riverside University Dictionary (1988):
Dehumanize—To deprive of human qualities or attributes.
Dominate—To control; to rule by superior power; to control or rule by authority.
Subjugate—To bring a person(s) under the dominion of another; enslave.
Surveillance—Close observation; the state of observing.
Subordinate state—In a position of subordination; subservient.

. Dinneen v. Finch, 100 Idaho 620, 603 P.2d 575 (1979); Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho 759, 727 P.2d 1187 (1986).