Court Opinion

ID: 9671738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:42:46.099473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:11.746548
License: Public Domain

Ed F. McFaddin, Associate Justice, dissenting. I dissent as to the remittitur. The jury awarded the widow $115,000.00 and awarded each of the two sons $25,000.00. The majority opinion says that these verdicts, totalling $165,000.00, are “the largest to come before this Court”; and then seeks to justify the reduction of the verdicts. Finally, the majority reduces Mrs. Webb’s verdict from $115,000.00 to $98,000.00, and reduces the verdict of each of the boys from $25,000.00 to $12,500.00; thus saving the appellants $42,000.00 and reducing the total verdict from $165,000.00 to $123,000.00. I commend the majority in attempting to explain why these reductions were made. Certainly, when a jury brings in a verdict and the Supreme Court decides to reduce it,, the Supreme Court should explain how and why it is. making the resolution1, rather than merely contenting itself with picking a figure out of the air. But, even so, I cannot escape the feeling that in this case the majority is “second-guessing” the jury and really sitting as an appellate jury; and such is not the function of the Supreme Court. At the outset, there is the matter of Mr. Webb’s earning capacity. He had been earning $5,000.00 a year, using $1,000.00 for his own personal items, and contributing $4,000.00 a year to his family. Mr. Webb’s employer testified that Webb was to receive a promotion and would receive from $7,000.00 to $10,000.00 per year beginning immediately. It is the duty of this Court to give the evidence its strongest probative force to sustain the jury verdict; and if we give the testimony of Mr. Webb’s employer its strongest probative force, then Mr. Webb would receive $10,000.00 a year, would retain $1,000.00 a year for himself, and -would contribute $9,000.00 per year in money to his wife and family. It was stipulated that Mr. Webb had a life expectancy of 23.08 years. If Mr. Webb had lived out his expectancy and had contributed $9,000.00 a year to his family, he would have made a total contribution in excess of $207,000.00 to his wife and family. Now, what is the present cash value of $9,000.00 a year for 23.08 years? Insurance tables tell us that for a person to receive $1.00 a year for 23 years would require $14,875 to be invested at 4% compound interest. In other words, if ■a person put up today $14,875 and invested it at compound interest at 4% (and that is more than banks are now paying)2, the result would be a payment of $1.00 a year for 23 years. Since Mr. Webb would have paid $9,000.00 a year for 23 years, the present cash value of Mr. Webb’s earnings is just a few dollars less than $134,000.00. So just on a cold dollars and cents basis, Mr. Webb had a present cash value to his wife and children of $134,000.00, and that is entirely ignoring'the great intangible value of a “Dad’ ’ to the boys and a companion to the wife, and is ignoring also the long dreary years for this family without a father and a husband. But back to the cold cash dollars and cents value of $134,000.00: how can the majority square that with the figure of $123,000.00 to which it is now reducing the verdict? And that $123,000.00 takes into consideration $30,-000.00 that is allowed Mrs. Webb for mental anguish, because the majority uses this language in next to the last ■ paragraph: “ .... we find that the total present value of future contributions will approach $68,000. Taking into consideration, in addition to pecuniary loss, mental anguish and loss of companionship and consortium, we are of the view that a total award to Mrs. Webb of $98,000. is proper in this case. ’ ’ So, even by the majority opinion, this $30,000.00 (the difference between the $68,000.00 and the $98,000.00 in the quotation) for loss of companionship, and for consortium and mental-anguish, should be added to the $134,000.00 (the cold cash value of Mr. Webb, as previously explained); and the result is $164,000.00, which is just $1,000.00 less than the jury verdict. How can the majority “second-guess” a jury when it is clearly demonstrable that the verdict is within $1,000.00 of figures as above explained? There is another thing about this majority opinion that alarms me; and that is the statement previously quoted: “----we find that the total present value of future contributions will approach $68,000. Taking into consideration, in addition to pecuniary loss, mental anguish and loss of companionship and consortium, we are of the view that a total award to Mrs. Webb of $98,000 is proper in this case. ’ ’ The full significance of that statement is astounding : it clearly seems to imply that as a matter of law the total of mental anguish damage, loss of companionship damage, and consortium damage, cannot exceed $30,000.00 in this case; and if such is the rule of law in this case, then such is the rule in every other case. The Legislature has placed no such limitations on those elements of damage. As a matter of fact, a recent Act of the Legislature3 allowed consortium damage and placed no such limits; and yet this Court, by the present majority opinion, is in effect placing a limit of $30,000.00 on the total damages for mental anguish, loss of companionship and consortium, that a wife can recover for the death of her husband. Our Constitution says that a person is entitled to a trial by jury in a case like this one; and we have held that a jury verdict will not be disturbed unless it is so grossly excessive as to shock the conscience. It shocks my conscience to see the quoted statement in the majority opinion. Now, as to the boys: who can measure the damage that these two young boys have sustained in the loss of their father at the very trying years when boys need a father most? How can the majority of this Court say that $12,500.00 is the limit for each boy, when fathers have for years contributed to sons up to half of the estate of the father ? The story of the Prodigal Son in Holy Writ is one such example. - Finally, I revert to the statement in the majority opinion first quoted herein, that these verdicts totalling' $165,000.00 are “the largest to come before this Court”. That is really, I think, the reason the reductions are being made. Present day verdicts should not be tested by the amounts allowed in the “horse-and-buggy” days since, now, the value of the dollar has depreciated. Courts in other judisdictions4 sustain large verdicts. The test is whether the evidence justifies the amounts awarded; and I have undertaken to show that the evidence in this case does justify the verdicts rendered. Therefore, I dissent as to the remittitur: and Justice Johnson joins in this dissent.   dissented as to the remittitur in Southern National Ins. Co. v. Williams, 224 Ark. 938, 277 S. W. 2d 487.    The majority opinion mentions “&% interest”; but since neither savings banks nor Government bonds paid such interest rate when the verdict was rendered, I submit 4% interest is a more realistic figure in support of the verdict.    See Act No. 255 of 1957, as contained in § 27-909 Ark. Stats.    For a few recent cases allowing judgments in death cases, such as this one, see: Devito v. United Airlines, 98 Fed. Supp. 88, wherein the amount was $160,000.00; Byrne v. Penn. R.R.Co., 169 Fed. Supp. 655, wherein the amount was $250,000.00; O’Toole v. United States, 242 Fed. 2d 308 3rd Circuit, whtrein the amount was $400,000.00; M.S.F.& G. Co. v. Hotkins, 170 N.Y.S. 2d 441, wherein the amount was $200,000.00; Tampa Drug Co. v. Wait (Fla.), 103 So. 2d 603, wherein the amount was $160,000.00; Pennell v. B.&O.R.R. (Ill.), 142 N. E. 2d 497, wherein the amount was $150,000.00; Buck v. Hill (Calif.), 263 Pac. 2d 643, wherein the amount was $150,000.00; and Gardner v. IIII Corp., 135 N. E. 2d 55, wherein the amount was $150,000.00.