Court Opinion

ID: 9833315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:36:29.864047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:01.518278
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[9] As shown in our original opinion, the jury by their verdict assessed plaintiff’s damages for the loss of her husband in the sum of $30,000, of which amount $18,000 was found by the trial judge to be excessive, and a remittitur of that amount was filed by plaintiff in the trial court. The award of damages so excessive cannot reasonably be explained upon any other hypothesis than that of bias in the minds of the jury in favor of the plaintiff. The rule is well settled that in cases of this character improper argument by counsel for plaintiff, calculated to appeal to the sympathy or prejudice of the jury, will furnish a valid reason for the reversal of a judgment in behalf of plaintiff. Kansas City, M. & O. Ry. Co. v. Cave, 174 S. W. 872, and decisions there cited; Gordon Jones Construction Co. v. Lopez, 172 S. W. 987, and decisions there cited; Chicago, R. I. & T. Ry. Co. v. Musick, 76 S. W. 219. The principle controlling in such cases applies with special force in the present suit, in which bias in the minds of the jury is so strongly shown.
As appears in our opinion on original hearing, the testimony introduced tended strongly to support the defense of contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff’s deceased husband, and almost conclusively and as a matter of law, established contributory negligence on the part of Simmons, the driver of the automobile, in failing to observe the approach of the train in time to stop his car before reaching the crossing. Notwithstanding that evidence, the jury, in answer to special issues, found that neither Simmons nor plaintiff’s deceased husband was guilty of contributory negligence in those respects.
Under such circumstances, it is reasonably probable that bias in the minds of the jury in plaintiff’s favor in assessing damages in such an excessive amount influenced them also in their finding in plaintiff’s favor against the defense of contributory negligence on the part of her husband; and for that reason we have reached the conclusion that the motion for rehearing should be granted, the judgment of the trial. court should be reversed, and the cause remanded for another trial; and it is accordingly so ordered.