Court Opinion

ID: 9669166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:41:27.551984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:53.120532
License: Public Domain

VANCE, Justice,
dissenting.
I am troubled not so much with the holding of the majority as with the opinion. The holding reverses the Court of Appeals and sustains a jury award to movant which had been set aside by the Court of Appeals as excessive. The majority opinion concludes, correctly, I believe, that movant sustained a permanent injury. The injury increased the chances of drastic future complications, including the possibility of spinal meningitis. The drastic consequences which may befall movant are only possibilities and, according to the medical testimony, not very great possibilities, certainly nothing even approaching a probability. Nevertheless, she has developed a phobic reaction about these possibilities, and for the remainder of her lifetime, it is probable that she will be tormented by the fear of these consequences. This a form of mental anguish which has resulted from her injury, and the jury was certainly entitled to award her compensation for the mental anguish which was established as a reasonable probability, if not a certainty. I agree that a reviewing court could not properly say the sum awarded was so excessive that no reasonable person could have awarded such a sum on the evidence heard and that it therefore must have resulted from bias or prejudice.
The opinion, however, does not stop there. It goes on to discuss at great length the right to recover damages for possible, not probable, physical injuries and seems to conclude that, in Kentucky, a recovery may be had for complications which may result from an injury when the medical evidence shows only the possibility that the complications may arise. This, I believe, is a departure from well-settled law in Kentucky which is both unwarranted and unnecessary to the decision of this case.
On page 930 of the slip opinion we find the statement:
“Thus the threshold question is the appellant’s right to compensation for an injury causing an increased risk of future harm and for mental suffering ... *934from the fear caused by the increased risk....”
The majority opinion then proceeds to discuss three Kentucky cases which recognize mental anguish as a damage factor, concludes that movant has suffered such anguish, and states that the question is whether the award for mental suffering is excessive.
Before answering that question, the majority states there is another aspect to the question and that is whether a condition which causes a substantial, but less than probable, increase of future harm is com-pensable.
Cases from other jurisdictions are cited in which awards were upheld which were based upon consideration of increased susceptibility to future harm even though such future harm was not probable, but only a mere possibility.
Also cited are two Kentucky cases, Oppenheimer v. Smith, Ky., 512 S.W.2d 510 (1974), and Richard v. Adair Hospital Foundation Corp., Ky.App., 566 S.W.2d 791 (1978). Oppenheimer is not authority for the proposition cited because the medical testimony was that future arthritic changes were “likely” which equates with probable, and Richard v. Adair Hospital Foundation Corp., supra, is not in point because the issue was whether summary judgment was proper in a negligence ease. The hospital simply failed to meet its burden to establish that no issue of fact existed as to its freedom from negligence. The case did not hold that recovery could be had on the proof of possibility of harm. The majority concludes:
“Thus, where there is substantial evidence of probative value to support it, the jury may consider and compensate for the increased likelihood of future complications. Where, as here, that likelihood initiates serious mental distress, this also is compensable.”
The majority holds that a jury may award compensation for a possible complication which may develop from an injury although the complication is not probable.
In addition to recovering for the possibility of this future complication, the majority states that you may also recover for any mental anxiety caused by the possibility.
In my view the award in this case can be upheld on the ground that an appellate court cannot say the compensation awarded for the proven mental anguish was so excessive as to be unreasonable. That is as far as we need go. It is not necessary or proper in the decision of this case to extend the law of Kentucky to allow recovery for the possibility that movant may contract spinal meningitis as a result of her injury. She had already recovered for that possibility in the award made to compensate her for mental anguish. The mental anguish is real, but meningitis is only a speculation.
STEPHENSON, J., concurs in this dissent.