Court Opinion

ID: 9757683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:53:47.775175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:42.634632
License: Public Domain

Bruñe, C. J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part filed the following opinion:
I am unable to agree with the view of the majority that the admission of the testimony that Leizear had been compensated for the time he was absent from work because of his disability was not prejudicial. The appellees claimed in urging the admission of this evidence that it had “a great deal” of “probative value” and that without it the plaintiff’s counsel would have “the jury believe that this man hasn’t received any money for those two weeks.” The evidence is conceded by the majority to have been inadmissible for that purpose and it is also conceded by the majority that a proper foundation for its admission as supporting a claim of malingering had not been established. The trial court gave an instruction excluding its consideration “with respect to loss of earnings” and coupled this with the statement “but it is his earning capacity which is compensable.” The court’s instructions on damages for pain and suffering were not in the usual form and seem to have been tied in very closely with future health and possible disability. It is difficult to tell whether past pain and suffering were even treated as separate elements of damages in the instructions given, and certainly there was no instruction that the evidence of payment during disability was not to be considered with regard to them. Any effect that this evidence may have had upon damages for pain and suffering was certainly not eliminated, in my estimation, by the instruction to disregard it as to earning power. It was, I think, left for consideration as primary evidence of malingering. I do not think that Leizear waived his right to press this point by failure to except to the charge on the ground that it should have excluded this evidence from consideration by the jury for any purpose.
I agree with the majority opinion as to West’s case and in its holding that (at least apart from any question of nominal *181damages) under our law a verdict in a personal injury case is not, as a matter of law, invalid because it does not include an award for pain and suffering. The so called standard damage prayer in general use in this State for about ninety-five years and frequently approved by this Court (see Rhone v. Fisher, 224 Md. 223, 225, 167 A. 2d 773), calls for an allowance by the jury for these and other items only “in such amount as, in your [the jury’s] opinion, will be a fair and just compensation for said injuries, loss and expenses.”