Court Opinion

ID: 9705742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:18:37.0013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:36.073194
License: Public Domain

MYERS, Associate Judge
(concurring).
Although I am in accord with the final disposition of this appeal, I am in disagreement with what appears to be specific approval in the majority opinion of permitting trial attorneys for plaintiffs (or for defendants) in future cases to argue damages for pain and suffering on a per diem basis. In view of the result reached in the present case, I am constrained to overlook the error of argument on that basis as harmless. However, the future use of this type of argument to juries in this jurisdiction on the determination of compensation for pain and suffering should be prohibited as improper. Any so-called mathematical formula to be followed by a jury in deciding the amount of damages to be fixed by them for pain and suffering is not only not supported by evidence, but also amounts to an invasion of the jury’s domain.
As has been indicated, there are recent decisions in many jurisdictions which have arrived at different conclusions on this same issue and there seems to be no discernible trend. However, I am satisfied that the better practice is to prohibit the use of per diem argument as a suggested means of reaching a fair evaluation for compensating pain and suffering.
In discussing the matter of a proposed mathematical formula for determining the allowance for pain and suffering and inconvenience, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said in Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Candler, 283 F. 881, 884, 28 A.L.R. 1174:
“No such process is possible in estimating the amount to be allowed for pain and suffering, or for pain and inconvenience. In the matter of pain, suffering, or inconvenience, no books are kept, no inventories made, no balances struck.
“Neither the plaintiff in the case nor anyone else in the world has ever established a standard of value for these ills. The only proof ever received to guide the jury in determining the amount of the allowance they should make is, broadly stated, the nature and extent of the injury, its effect and results. They are instructed to allow a reasonable sum as compensation, and in determining what is reasonable under the evidence to be guided by their observation, experience and sense of fairness and right. At the best the allowance is an estimated sum deter*384mined by the intelligence and conscience of the jury, and we are convinced that a jury would be much more likely to return a just verdict, considering the estimated life as one single period, than if it should attempt to reach a verdict by dividing the life into yearly periods, setting down yearly estimates and then reducing the estimates to their present value. The arbitrariness and ■artificiality of such a method is so apparent that to require a jury to apply it, we think, would be an absurdity.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit approved this ruling in the Candler case, supra, in the case of Texas & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Buckles, 232 F.2d 257, 264, Writ of Certiorari denied 351 U.S. 984, 76 S.Ct. 1052, 100 L.Ed. 1498.
The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia refused to recognize the per diem basis in the case of Crum v. Ward, 122 S.E.2d 18, 26, saying:
“The mathematical formula argument is based wholly on speculation or imaginary inferences, not supported by facts, in reality by supposed facts "which could not be received in evidence. * * * No effort, perhaps, would •succeed in pointing out the almost innumerable variables necessarily existing or involved in such speculation. * * * It is sometimes contended that though such uncertainties exist, necessitating speculation, it is more reasonable to permit counsel to suggest or speculate than to permit the jury to do so. But the time-tried and time-honored method of preventing such speculation, and preventing the inflaming of the jury, has afforded the courts a way to deny unjust verdicts by setting them ■aside. We would assume that if the tried and proved method is to be discarded, and counsel permitted to suggest as proper a mathematical formula that courts would be bound by a finding based on that formula, and would be powerless, in most cases, at least, to control such verdicts, though there existed little doubt that they were unduly influenced.”
On the same subject, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania said in the case of Herb v. Hallowell, 304 Pa. 128, 154 A. 582, 584, 85 A.L.R. 1004:
“The nature of pain and suffering is such that no legal yardstick can be fashioned to measure accurately reasonable compensation for it. No one can measure another’s pain and suffering; only the person suffering knows how much he is suffering, and even he could not accurately say what would be reasonable pecuniary compensation for it. Earning power and dollars are interchangeable; suffering and dollars are not. Two persons apparently suffering the same pain from the same kind of injury might in fact be suffering respectively pains differing much in acuteness, depending on the nervous sensibility of the sufferer. Two persons suffering exactly the same pain would doubtless differ as to what reasonable compensation for that pain would be. This being true, it follows that jurors would probably differ widely as to what is reasonable compensation for another’s pain and suffering, no matter how specific the court’s instructions might be. * * * ”
The Supreme Court of Florida in the case of Braddock v. Seaboard Air Line Railroad Co., 80 So.2d 662, 668 said:
“The rule for measuring damages for pain and suffering, past, present and future, has been often stated, * * * ‘As to pain and suffering the law declares that there is no standard by which to measure it except the enlightened conscience of impartial jurors. * * * ’
(p. 669) “ * * * Jurors know the nature of pain, embarrassment and inconvenience, and they also know the nature of money. Their problem of equating the two to afford reasonable *385and just compensation calls for a high order of human judgment, and the law has provided no better yardstick for their guidance than their enlightened conscience. Their problem is not one of mathematical calculation but involves an exercise of their sound judgment of what is fair and right. * * * ”
The Supreme Court of Missouri in the case of Faught v. Washam, 329 S.W.2d 588, 603, said:
“To us, the considerations advanced by the authorities disapproving the mathematical formula argument are more persuasive. Whatever may be the cold logic or academic theory of the matter, the ungilded reality is that such argument is calculated' and designed to implant in the jurors’ minds definite figures and amounts not theretofore in the record (and which otherwise could not get into the record) and to influence the jurors to adopt those figures and amounts in evaluating pain and suffering and in admeasuring damages therefor. If an argument of this character is permissible and proper, it would be just as logical, and equally as fair, to permit ‘expert witnesses’ to evaluate pain and suffering on a per diem or per hour basis — a revolutionary innovation which, so far as we are advised, not even the most ardent zealots of the mathematical formula technique have (as yet) proposed. * * * ”
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Affett v. Milwaukee & Suburban Transport Corp., 11 Wis.2d 604, 106 N.W.2d 274, 280, has said:
“The difficulty in using a mathematical formula to measure damages for pain and suffering is inherent in the nature of pain and suffering. It cannot be measured by any such mathematical standard. * * * The present rule for measuring damages is as fixed as the nature of the subject matter will permit. * * * We fail to see where a mathematical formula or pain-on-a-per-diem or per-month basis has its basis in the evidence. * * * Such arguments are beyond the scope of proper argumentation.”
The Supreme Court of New Jersey in a well reasoned opinion in the case of Botta v. Brunner, 26 N.J. 82, 138 A.2d 713, 60 A.L.R.2d 1331 (citing many supporting authorities) had this to say about the argument of damages for pain and suffering upon a per diem basis:
(138 A.2d p. 718) “For hundreds of years, the measure of damages for pain and suffering following in the wake of a personal injury has been ‘fair and reasonable compensation.’ This general standard was adopted because of universal acknowledgment that a more specific or definitive one is impossible. There is and there can be no fixed basis, table, standard, or mathematical rule which will serve as an accurate index and guide to the establishment of damage awards for personal injuries. And it is equally plain there is no measure by which the amount of pain and suffering endured by a particular human can be calculated. * * * The varieties and degrees of pain are almost infinite. jjj % sjc f)
(p. 720) “ * * * Pain and suffering have no known dimensions, mathematical or financial. There is no exact correspondence between money and physical or mental injury or suffering, and the various factors involved are not capable of proof in dollars and cents. For this reason, the only standard for evaluation is such amount as reasonable persons estimate to be fair compensation. * * * ”
(p. 722) “There can be no doubt that the prime purpose of suggestions, direct or indirect, in the opening or closing statements of counsel of per *386hour or per diem sums as the value of or as compensation for pain, suffering and kindred elements associated with injury and disability is to instill in the minds of jurors impressions, figures and amounts not founded or appearing in the evidence. * * * ”
(p. 723) “ * * * They have no foundation in the evidence. They import into the trial elements of sheer speculation on a matter which by universal understanding is not susceptible of evaluation on any such basis. No one has ever argued that a witness, expert or otherwise, would be competent to estimate pain on a per hour or per diem basis. * * * ”
(p. 725) ,“In the final analysis, we hold the view that suggestions of this sort we are asked to approve here constitute an unwarranted intrusion into the domain of the jury. * * * the matter of assessment of reasonable compensation for personal injuries must be left to the traditional trier of the fact and cannot be gauged by any established graduated scale. * * * ”
Such an unrealistic formula, unsupported by evidence in the trial, definitely tends to encourage a jury to use an easy multiplication method rather than to require them from all the evidence to fix a fair and reasonable compensation for pain and suffering in accordance with the time-recognized and proven basic rule in damages. It is a factor in reaching unfair verdicts in those cases where the defendant has honestly admitted liability and only asks the jury to fairly and reasonably name the amount of damages to be paid. To permit per diem evaluation of pain and suffering would plunge the already subjective determination into absurdity by demanding accurate mathematical computation of the present worth of an amount by guesswork. It amounts to not only sheer speculation but substitutes unproven and fanciful standards of evaluation for evidence.