Court Opinion

ID: 9861957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:55:54.168693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:51.077997
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: Once again, this court indicates both an inability to recognize an excessive verdict and an unwillingness to consider any mechanism to deal with the problem. Of course, in defense of the majority, it must be said that if there can never be an excessive verdict, there can never be an excessive verdict problem. This, however, is an evasion of reality and an abdication of judicial responsibility. As an aid to understanding, I recite the essential facts. Decedent, a nurse by training, died from complications arising from gastric bypass surgery performed in a weight-reduction operation. At the time of her death, she was 29 years old and was being paid $6 per hour. She was survived by a husband of 12 years and two children, aged 8 and 12. These plaintiffs first obtained a voluntary settlement with other defendants for $2.7 million, after which an additional $7.3 million was gained by a jury verdict against the defendant hospital. The combined settlement and verdicts total $10 million. Deducting the customary one-third fee for the lawyer of $3.33 million, decedent’s husband and two children are left with $6.67 million, tax free. That sum, invested at 5%, would produce an annual income of $333,350 per year throughout the 50-year life expectancy of the decedent, with the principal left intact. Even when divided between the husband and children, the survivors have a sum of money which, if invested properly, will place them among the highest strata of income earners in our country. The jury verdict, broken down, was as follows: $600,000 for decedent’s pain and suffering; $400,000 for her disability and disfigurement; $1.2 million for her husband’s loss of consortium; $5 million for her children’s loss of society; and $100,000 for the loss of money suffered by the surviving husband and children. It should further be noted that the $400,000 disability and disfigurement award was given notwithstanding that decedent was unconscious at the time of the disfigurement and never regained consciousness before her death. It need hardly be stated that one who is unconscious at the time of disfigurement and who never regains consciousness cannot have a compensable injury for disfigurement. Yet, it is exactly this illogical precedent that the majority today sets forth. Through the years, this court has repeatedly paid lip service to the responsibility courts have to carefully scrutinize the record to determine whether the amount of a verdict is so large as to indicate that it is the result of prejudice or passion. (See Lee v. Chicago Transit Authority (1992), 152 Ill. 2d 432, 470, 476-80 (Heiple, J., dissenting); Drews v. Gobel Freight Lines, Inc. (1991), 144 Ill. 2d 84, 97-98, 105-07 (Heiple, J., dissenting); Lynch v. Board of Education of Collinsville Community Unit District No. 10 (1980), 82 Ill. 2d 415, 437; Baird v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. Co. (1976), 63 Ill. 2d 463, 473; Lau v. West Towns Bus Co. (1959), 16 Ill. 2d 442, 453.) As in the case at hand, courts sometimes refer to a "shock the conscience” standard in determining whether verdicts are excessive. (See 165 Ill. 2d at 177; Wagner v. City of Chicago (1993), 254 Ill. App. 3d 842; Northern Trust Co. v. County of Cook (1985), 135 Ill. App. 3d 329.) However, such soporific language, devoid of any method or mechanism for determining whether a verdict is excessive, is analytically useless. It has led the courts of this State to give juries carte blanche in assessing damages for noneconomic injuries. Indeed, my research has failed to disclose a single case where this court has found a multimillion dollar verdict for noneconomic damages to be either the result of prejudice or passion or a shock to its judicial conscience. From this it can only be concluded that no jury verdict can ever be excessive in Illinois. That this is a sad case is inarguable. A young mother loses her life due to medical malpractice and leaves behind a surviving husband and two young children. Only a person with a heart of stone could fail to feel sorry for these people. Since the law cannot bring back the life of a young mother, it mandates compensation for the victims from those who caused the loss. That is both fair and reasonable. This compensation, however, cannot be limitless. As was so cogently stated by the Supreme Court of West Virginia in the case of a child’s death, "if the measure of damages were the value of a human life then, arguably, no jury verdict could be excessive. *** Counsel’s suggestion that the [family] would not have traded [the child’s] life for $10,000,000 is entirely accurate — but they would also not have traded [the child’s] life for $100,000,000 or even a $1,000,000,000.” Roberts v. Stevens Clinic Hospital, Inc. (1986), 176 W. Va. 492, 500, 345 S.E.2d 791, 800. I do not dispute the proposition that an injured plaintiff should be well and fairly compensated by a negligent defendant. Nor do I dispute the proposition that lawyers are entitled to be paid for services rendered. What I do seriously question is a sky’s the limit approach to jury verdicts. What is needed here is a rule of reason and a mechanism for assessing the legitimacy of an award. For the reasons given, I respectfully dissent.