Court Opinion

ID: 9474800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:09:01.551154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:20.393902
License: Public Domain

BOYLE, District Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority and join in their reasoning on all but one issue. That issue is the allocation of the burden of proof for the present value of lost future earnings. In my opinion, that burden must rest with the plaintiff.
We are in agreement that lost future earnings must be reduced to their present value. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company v. Dickerson, — U.S.-, 105 S.Ct. 1347, 84 L.Ed.2d 303 (1985), Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Pfeifer, 462 U.S. 523, 103 S.Ct. 2541, 76 L.Ed.2d 768 (1983).
The majority places the burden on the defendant to prove this material element of plaintiff’s claim.
A defendant has no burden to prove any of the contested material issues of fact in a plaintiff’s cause of action. The present value of lost future earnings is not an affirmative defense but rather a material element of the plaintiff's claim for that special damage.
If the plaintiff fails to offer any evidence of one or more of the elements of this special damage, then as a matter of law, the plaintiff’s proof has failed and that claim should not be submitted to the jury.
The plaintiff has the burden at all times to prove by some competent evidence each of the material facts of his claim. Where part of plaintiff’s case, as it was here, is for the special damage of lost future earnings, then plaintiff must offer some evidence of the earnings, the future term, and the present worth of this sum.
In order to test the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s evidence, a defendant must exer*1069cise its rights under Rule 50 of the F.R. Civ.P. at the appropriate time at trial. This the defendant failed to do, and for this reason I concur in the result.
Rule 50 provides that a party making the motion base it on specific grounds. The defendant moved pursuant to Rule 50 and based it on “the issue of liability”. This motion was renewed at the end of all of the evidence by the defendant “for precisely the same reasons — cited at the close of the plaintiffs case”.
The defendant never challenged the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s evidence on the special damage of lost future earnings. In particular, the defendant allowed the plaintiff to proceed unchallenged through argument without any evidence on the present worth of the lost future earnings. A defendant must make a timely challenge to the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s case and the failure to do so will bar relief on motion for JNOV and here on appeal. Under the circumstances presented to the trial judge he correctly refused to charge on the present worth of these lost future wages.
Likewise, the trial judge correctly refused to allow a mistrial based on plaintiff’s argument. The argument was faithful to the evidence, even if the evidence was insufficient in law.