Court Opinion

ID: 9855089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:19:21.361577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:40.075632
License: Public Domain

STUART, Justice
(dissenting).
I concur in the first ten divisions of the majority opinion, but respectfully dissent from division XI and subsequent divisions which approve the award of $264,162.24 for the death of Mrs. Schmitt and $302,577.94 for the death of Mr. Schmitt. The awards here are not realistic, are not supported by the evidence and did not effectuate substantial justice. I would therefore reverse and remand the case for new trial on the issue of damages alone. Without doubt Mr. and Mrs. Schmitt were fine citizens and excellent parents and their deaths were a terrible tragedy. The psychological impact of their loss upon these children is immeasurable. If the question were how much were these parents worth to these children, it would be impossible to quarrel with the verdicts. However, I do not believe the amendment to section 613.15 was intended to allow the jury free speculation in this area. The verdicts should have some relationship to the financial losses sustained by the children. If these awards were invested at 5%, they would provide the children with an annual income of over $28,000 without disturbing the principal of $566,000. Such result appears to me to be totally unrealistic and unsupported.
Prior to the amendment to section 613.15 by the 61st General Assembly, the measure of damages for the wrongful death of a man under our survival statute was limited to the loss to his estate. This was grossly unfair to the family for whom there was no recovery for the loss of his support and services. The cost of supporting and educating a family make it impossible for the average father to accumulate a sizeable estate. The amendment sought to remedy this situation by making the measure of damages in this respect the same for a man and a woman. The only change in the measure of damages for the wrongful death of a woman was to add “loss of support” to “loss of services”. The change is immaterial in so far as Mrs. Schmitt is concerned as her contribution consisted of services, not support. She did not work outside the home.
I. I shall first consider the award for Mrs. Schmitt’s death. The evidence supporting the award is set forth in the majority opinion and need not be repeated here. In my opinion, the court erred in permitting Mrs. Scribbins to testify as to the value of Mrs. Schmitt’s services as a “governess-manager”. Plaintiffs failed to lay an adequate foundation for her opinion. Nothing in her education or experience qualified her to put a dollar value on such services. Attorney for plaintiffs conceded such foundation might not have been adequate in the first instance and, at the court’s suggestion, proceeded to ask further questions. Most of the further questions dealt with qualifications to testify as to her value as a housekeeper. The only question directed to her knowledge of the cost of a governess was answered' in the negative. She virtually admitted her lack of qualifications in her own narrative answers.
In Bridenstine v. Iowa City Electric Railway Co., 181 Iowa 1124, 1134, 165 N.W. 435, 439, we stated that the services of a mother cannot be weighed monetarily *667and that it is almost frivolous to call witnesses to estimate the monetary loss. Although this statement was made in support of a verdict claimed to be too large, it seems equally applicable to any attempt to place monetary values on motherly services.
The verdict of $264,000 indicates that the jury made no attempt to reduce the value of her services to their present value. The services described and relied on were primarily enjoyed by minor children in the home. As children mature and leave the home the necessity for and the rendering of such services decrease. Even accepting Mrs. Scribbins’ valuation of $15,600 per year for Mrs. Schmitt’s services and allowing the full amount until the youngest child (5) reached the age of 21, the total would be less than $250,000. There is no evidence to support an award of $264,000 as the present value of Mrs. Schmitt’s services.
In this connection we have said “the law implies damages to minor children but adult children must prove their pecuniary loss. 25 C.J.S. Death § 118. In such cases adult children are not entitled to recover on the basis of their relationship alone.” DeMoss v. Walker, 242 Iowa 911, 913-914, 48 N.W.2d 811, 813.
The award here is ten times greater than any award previously approved by this court for the death of a mother. We approved an award of $23,620 in Henneman v. McCalla, 260 Iowa 60, 80, 148 N.W.2d 447, 459. There the wife helped with the farm work and earned $130 per month as a nurses’ aid.
In my opinion the award is not supported by substantial evidence.
II. I also believe the award to the ad-minstrator of Mr. Schmitt’s estate is not supported by the evidence, is the result of passion and prejudice and that a new trial on this issue is necessary in order to administer substantial justice.
I agree with the majority that proper objection to the foundation for Dr. Mar-berry’s projections was not made and the evidence is in the record for whatever it is worth. However, I do not believe this evidence gives substantial support to the verdict.
I do not disapprove of the use of projected income and personal expenses to arrive at an estimate of the loss of support or loss to the estate, but, in my opinion, the foundational assumptions upon which Dr. Marberry based his estimate were so patently false and inaccurate that the evidence offered here was of little value and did not support his opinion.
Dr. Marberry prepared a schedule which showed that if Mr. Schmitt stayed in the same job until he was 68 years old, his salary would advance from $9600 to $32,319, increasing at the rate of 7% per year until he reached the median salary at age 57, then increasing at the rate of 4'% per year because of inflationary pressures to age 65, where it would remain for the last three years. I believe there was adequate foundation for the opinion that inflation would cause a 4% increase in salary per year in this particular position. However, there was nothing to justify the assumption that Mr. Schmitt’s salary would increase at the rate of 7% per year until the median were reached. There is nothing in the record which would entitle him to assume Webster City would ever pay the median salary or that Mr. Schmitt would ever reach the median salary. More importantly however the reason given for assuming the 7% rate was the increase in Mr. Schmitt’s salary from $9000 in 1964 to $9600 in 1965. This was about a 7% increase which Dr. Marberry applied every year thereafter until age 57. He failed to consider that Mr. Schmitt’s position had carried a salary of $9000 from July 1962 through 1964. The raise covered 2½ years not 1 year, and the actual rate of increase was less than the 4% inflationary rate.
*668Mr. Schmitt’s daughter prepared a summary of all of his checks for the years 1963 and 1964. From this exhibit and her personal knowledge, she estimated her father spent $1500 a year for his personal expenses. I do not quarrel with the foundation for this opinion. However, Dr. Mar-berry assumed that Mr. Schmitt, who spent $1500 a year for himself when he was supporting 6 minor children on a salary of $9000 would spend the same dollar amount on himself as the children left home and his salary increased to $32,319. He gave no basis for this assumption. The mere statement of the assumption discloses its absurdity and unsoundness.
The $1500 per year personal expenses were increased to cover inflation at the rate of 2% per year. Although Dr. Mar-berry testified this was the rate of increase over a long period of time, the rate of inflation for the preceeding year was 3.3'% and it was expected to exceed 4% in the year of the trial. Under this evidence, the use of a 2% rate of increase was not reasonable, especially when he used a 4% inflationary increase in wages.
For each year to age 68, Dr. Marberry deducted the projected personal expenses from the projected salary and arrived at a figure he called “loss to the family”. This figure is highly inaccurate and misleading. It totally disregards the substantial impact of federal and state income taxes. Even if we accept, for the purpose of argument, his computations and assumptions, his “loss to the family” figure would be too large by several thousand dollars every year.
For example, according to Dr. Mar-berry’s schedule, Mr. Schmitt would have earned $32,319 in 1986 at the age of 65. The federal and state income taxes on such salary, if the rates remained the same, would be about $7800. Nowhere in the exhibit is this unpleasant fact of life acknowledged. This gross error in and of itself is sufficient to destroy the value of Dr Marberry’s opinions and computations.
There are, however, other factors which also tend to destroy the reliability of Dr. Marberry’s projection of “loss to the family.” He ignores social security contributions. He gives no consideration to church contributions which exceeded 7'% of Mr. Schmitt’s income. Because of the important place religion had in his life, it is logical to assume his church contributions would have increased as his income increased resulting in a corresponding diminution of the money available to the family.
I am not willing to say that so misleading and inaccurate projection furnishes support for Dr. Marberry’s conclusion that the present value of the “loss to the family” resulting from Mr. Schmitt’s death was $307,469 even if no proper objection was made to the foundation. But, the similarity between the jury verdict of $302,577.94 and Dr. Marberry’s projected figure gives every inclination that the jury relied heavily on this unsatisfactory evidence. I find no substantial evidence in the record to support verdicts of the size rendered here.
I would reverse and remand the case for new trial on the damage issue alone.
GARFIELD, C. J., and LARSON and SNELL, JJ., join in this dissent.