Court Opinion

ID: 9809529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:16:57.809087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:08.524733
License: Public Domain

Hoke, J.,
concurring: I concur in the decision awarding *199a new trial and in the opinion which declares that the facts set out in the record disclose no case for the recovery of punitive or exemplary damages. There seems, however, to have been some misapprehension, on the trial below, as to the elements of damage involved in the two issues addressed to that question. These issues were: Y. What is the actual damage sustained ? 8. What exemplary damages, if any, is plaintiff entitled to recover?
The court below and the parties litigant seem to have considered that the seventh issue, on actual damages, was confined to pecuniary loss, and that any recovery over and above this must be had, if at all, on the eighth issue, above set out. But this is not at all true. “Actual,” in the sense of compensatory damages, is not restricted necessarily to the actual loss in time or money. The claimant may be confined to this, if the jury so determine, but more than this is contained in the term and more than this is covered by the issue. As said by Clark, C. J., in Osborn v. Leach, 135 N. C., 628: Where the facts and nature of the action so warrant, “actual damages include pecuniary loss, physical pain and mental suffering,” etc. And again: “Compensatory damages include all other damages than punitive, thus embracing not only special damage as direct pecuniary loss, but injury to feelings, mental anguish,” etc., citing 18 Am. & Eng. Enc. (2 Ed.), 1082; Hale on Damages, pp. 99, 106. And this last author says: “It may be stated as a general rule in actions of tort, that whenever a wrong is committed which will support an action to recover some damages, compensation for mental suffering may also be recovered', if such suffering follows as a natural and proximate result.” And so here, where a passenger is wrongfully ejected from a railroad train, the demand may be considered as one in tort, and, on an issue as to actual or compensatory damages, he may recover what the jury may decide to be a fair and just compensation for the injury, including his actual loss in time or *200money, the physical inconvenience and mental suffering or humiliation endured, and which could be considered as a reasonable and probable result of the wrong done. McNeill v. Railroad, 135 N. C., 683; Head v. Railroad, 79 Ga., 358; Hale on Damages, supra, sec. 261. As said by Bleckley, J., in Head's case: “Wounding a man’s feelings is as much actual damage as breaking his limb. The difference is that one is internal and the other external; one mental, the other physical * * * At common law compensatory damages include, upon principle and, I think, upon authority, salve for wounded feelings, and our Code had no purpose to deny such damages where the common law allowed them.”
Exemplary or punitive damages are not given with a view to compensation, but are under certain circumstances awarded in addition to compensation as a punishment to defendant and as a warning to other wrongdoers. They are not allowed as a matter of course, but only where there are some features of aggravation, as when the wrong is done wilfully and maliciously, or under circumstances of rudeness or oppression, or in a manner which evinces a reckless and wanton disregard of plaintiff’s rights. It is not necessary to submit this element of damage under a separate issue, but there is no objection to this course,' and frequently it is desirable, as stated in the principal opinion, there are no circumstances of aggravation, shown in this evidence, which would justify an award of exemplary damages, but on the issue as to actual or compensatory damages, the jury under proper instructions should be directed to award what in their judgment is a fair compensation for the plaintiff’s wrong under the principle here stated, and not confined to the actual loss in time or money as was done on the former trial.
Clark, C. J., Connor and Walker, JJ., concur in concurring opinion.