Court Opinion

ID: 9650627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:47:03.370703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:07.663485
License: Public Domain

*353Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Musmanno:
TV. Stanley Kite, 61 years of age, was injured on April 5, 1953, in an automobile accident, liability for which is now settled. The violence of the impact was such that he suffered unconsciousness and fractures of the leg which caused it to hinge in the wrong direction. He underwent three operations, his leg was placed in a east several times, he was immobilized many months in the hospital and in his bed at home. His leg underwent atrophy to the extent that he now walks with a limp. He also carries in the mended bone a steel pin, the presence of which may in the future subject him to another operation. In addition to the leg disablement the plaintiff experienced a nervous facial twitching and some memory loss resulting from the brain concussion.
The jury awarded him a verdict of $40,000, which the Majority of this Court has reduced to $30,000. I see no warrant for this drastic action. We have frequently said that a verdict is to be reduced only when it shocks our sense of justice.* I feel no shock.
As vice president of an insurance company the plaintiff Kite received an annual salary of $19,500. The appellant Benick admits in his brief: “As a result of this accident, he did not attend his office on a regular basis from April 7, 1953, until October, 1953, a period of approximately six months. During the next three months he continued to wear a cast and to use crutches. He underwent a second operation in January, 1954, from which he convalesced at home until February, 1954.”
Although the appellant thus concedes that the plaintiff was unable to attend to his duties for almost ten months, he argues that the plaintiff is not entitled *354to any monetary damages for this period (exclusive of medical expenses) because he was paid his regular salary. But if Kite’s employer was benevolently disposed toward his injured employee and was willing to pay him his salary even though he did not work, what right does Renick have to complain? A tortfeasor is responsible monetarily for all damages flowing from his tortuous act, irrespective of kindnesses visited upon his victim. A tortfeasor may not ask credit for the value of an artificial limb donated to the person who lost a leg through his negligence. The coins cast into the hat of the crippled victim of an accident are not to be turned over to the person who crippled him.
The majority of this Court has decided that Renick is correct in his position that there should be deducted from the jury’s verdict the amount of salary paid Kite during the controverted period. However, in supporting the appellant’s position the Majority cites a case which is authority to the exact contrary of what the appellant maintains. The Majority Opinion quotes from the case Stevenson v. Pa. Sports and Enterprises, Inc., 372 Pa. 157, 163, as follows: “ ‘Whether a plaintiff may recover loss of wages from a tortfeasor where the injured party has been paid the wages by his employer is to be determined by the evidence. The rule of law is clear: if the payments by the employer were a gratuity or gift, claimant may recover for loss of wages against a third party tortfeasor. The generosity of the employer does not redound to the benefit of the torongdoer.’”* This statement of sound policy was originally enunciated by Judge Arnold of the Superior Court (now Justice of this Court) in the case of Schwoerer Philadelphia, 167 Pa. Superior Ct. 356, 360, on July 20, 1950.
*355Although the Majority cites the Stevenson case to support Renick’s claim to the Kite salary as against the amount the jury required him to pay, the Stevenson case actually takes Renick in the opposite direction. The quoted ease says that whether a disabled employee should receive damages which will cover wages paid him by his employer during the period of the disablement “is to be determined by the evidence The evidence, accepted and approved by the jury, established that the plaintiff was entitled to damages for salary, even though already paid by the employer.
Justice Arnold said in the Schwoerer case, supra, page 360: “Since the plaintiff rendered to his employer no service of any kind (during the period of disability), the sums paid to the plaintiff by his employer must be a gift or gratuity. (Italics in original Opinion.)
If the plaintiff did not render any services during the period in question, the salary paid to him must be a gift or gratuity. It certainly cannot be argued that the plaintiff in this case was rendering any service to his employer while he was on the operating table, while he was immobilized in a hospital bed, while his leg was in a cast, while he was bedfast at home, and while he could move only in a wheel chair or on crutches. The plaintiff did report to his office when he was able to do so, but he had to keep his injured leg elevated on a stand. The cast was not taken off his leg until May 20, 1954. ITis job required him to do “a considerable amount of traveling.” Naturally, he could not travel during the entire period of his incapacitation. Thus, the facts in the case speak themselves of an empty service which made the salary paid the plaintiff a gratuity, whether it was so denominated or not.
The Majority Opinion calls into review cases of the past where reductions were made in verdicts, but this Court should not prepare a Procrustean bed on which *356•to place verdicts for lopping, so that they may fit artificial standards.* The Majority cites the case of LaPosta v. Himmer, 358 Pa. 69, decided in 1947, to justify its reduction of the verdict in the instant ease. But -the utter unreliability of that case as a measuring stick is evident, firstly, in that the cost of living during the last ten years has rocketed into the stratospheric regions; and, secondly, the dollar, which, although showing signs of atrophying in 1947, had not reached the wheel chair stage of today. Then it must be noted also that there is a vast difference between the wages which were paid LaPosta and the salary paid Kite. At the time of his accident, LaPosta was receiving $90 a week. At the time of his accident, Kite was receiving $382 a week. It certainly does not require a mathematical genuis of the stature of Einstein to compute that in a year’s time Kite would lose more at $382 per week than LaPosta would lose at $90 per week.
The other case of McCarthy v. Ference, 358 Pa. 485, also cited by the Majority, and which was decided in 1948 (while the dollar still had a few powerful friends on the Bialto) is equally inappropriate to a consideration of the verdict in this case because the plaintiff there was 26 years of age (as compared to Kite’s age of 61) and the Opinion of the Court does not state what his year’s, monthly, or weekly wages were.
The Majority reduces the verdict by $10,000 but does not specify how it arrives at that figure. The jury did not say that it had awarded $10,000 for lost wages. It returned a general verdict of $40,000 after listening to the Judge’s charge which said: “The fact that his employer paid him is not to enure to the benefit of any*357one who is liable for the damages, so that is an item that you are to consider in your deliberations as to the amount of the verdict, if you find there is to be a verdict for Mr. Kite.”
The Judge merely said that the jury was to consider the matter of lost wages as an “item.” It may be that the jury did not allow all of $10,000 for wages, but awarded substantial sums for pain, suffering, and inconvenience, for the nervous sensations described by the plaintiff, for the possible future operation, and for brain injury. Who can decide with precision how much one should receive in money when the very rudder of the ship of life has been damaged, no matter for how short a period? Once the delicate membranes of the brain have been lacerated, one can no more be certain that they will heal and the scars vanish than that scratches on fine Venetian glass will disappear with the passage of time.
I dissent.

 Fasick v. Byerly, 331 Pa. 85, 89.

 Italics mine unless otherwise indicated.

 Procrustes of Greek legend, used also to stretch his victims if they were too short for his bed. Phis Court does not augment verdicts.