Court Opinion

ID: 9722842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:52:21.602506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:40.437317
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE KASSERMAN, dissenting: In my opinion, the judgment of the circuit court of St. Clair County is excessive and should not be affirmed. The trial court, at the request of plaintiff, gave Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Civil, Nos. 30.01, 30.02, 30.04, 30.05, and 30.07 (2d ed. 1971) in conjunction with itemized forms of verdict as required by section 65.1 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 110, par. 65.1) IPI Civil No. 30.02 requires that the jury fix the amount of money which will reasonably and fairly compensate plaintiff for the nature, extent and duration of his injury. Additionally, the jury was provided with an itemized form of verdict which contained a specific award for the nature, extent and duration of plaintiff’s injury. Pattern jury instructions are designed to specify the instructions to be employed to advise the jury as to the elements they must consider in determining the measure of the plaintiff’s damages. After receiving its instructions, the jury awarded plaintiff $50,000 for the disability resulting from his injury, $50,000 for pain and suffering experienced and reasonably certain to be experienced in the future, and $150,000 for lost earnings. In arriving at these amounts, of necessity the jury would have been required to have considered the nature, extent and duration of plaintiff’s injury in making an award for the disability resulting from his injury, for the pain and suffering experienced by plaintiff and reasonably certain to be experienced by him in the future as a result of the injury, and for the value of earnings lost by plaintiff and the present cash value of earnings reasonably certain to be lost by him in the future. Furthermore, in addition to the foregoing, plaintiff was awarded $50,000 for an element of damages designed to compensate him for the “nature, extent and duration of the injury.” It is incomprehensible that the jury could place a monetary value on the nature, extent and duration of plaintiff’s injury without relating such an award to the remaining items of compensable loss, disability and disfigurement, pain and suffering, and loss of earnings (IPI Civil Nos. 30.04, 30.05, and 30.07). Although the “Notes on Use” of IPI Civil No. 30.02 state “[i]t is difficult to imagine a jury case in which this phrase will not be appropriate,” it is my conclusion that an instruction and form of verdict containing an element of damage for the nature, extent and duration of the injury provides for excessive recovery for plaintiff’s personal injury and that the award for the nature, extent and duration of plaintiff’s injury was duplicitous of the other awards the jury returned in plaintiff’s behalf. For the foregoing reasons, I would order a remittitur in the amount of $50,000 pursuant to our authority under Supreme Court Rule 366(a)(5) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 110A, par. 366(a)(5)).