Court Opinion

ID: 9468636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:19:26.385703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:57.673025
License: Public Domain

NICHOL, Senior District Judge,
dissenting.
I concur in this opinion, except as to the question of damages and the remittitur, which the majority opinion would require. As to damages and the required remittitur, I respectfully dissent.
The test, as clearly enunciated by this Court in Drotzmanns, Inc. v. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 500 F.2d 830, 835 (8th Cir. 1974), is whether the verdict “is so grossly excessive as to shock the conscience of [the] court.” As the majority opinion points out, it is necessary to look to the case law in the forum state for guidance on the question of excessiveness. See Perry v. Bertsch, 441 F.2d 939 (8th Cir. 1971). The Perry Court, however, cautions that “the comparison of verdicts in other cases is of limited value as each case must rest on its own peculiar facts.” Id. at 944. While the majority cites two Missouri cases1 where the award for the loss of vision in one eye was far less than the $800,000 awarded to Stineman, they totally ignore the 1981 case cited by Stineman where a St. Louis jury returned a verdict in the amount of $1,000,067 for the *1090loss of an eye.2 Not one of these cases involved multiple handicaps, which resulted from the loss of the eye, as is the case with Stineman.
The jury in returning a damage award of $800,000 and Judge Wangelin in denying Fontbonne’s motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict or the alternative motions for Remittitur and a new trial had an opportunity to see the plaintiff and to judge the credibility of all the witnesses. The jury had an opportunity to directly view the extent of injury in this case and Judge Wangelin did not find the award plainly unjust or shocking.
The record discloses that the possibility of plaintiff’s total loss of vision is devastating. Stineman would lose contact with the rest of the world. Because of this possibility Stineman has been required to restructure her lifestyle. She now wears glasses to protect her seeing eye as well as to relieve the strain on it. She must be careful to always position herself against blows to her seeing eye by sitting with the eye facing the wall. She can no longer participate in any sports. Further, Stineman suffers from the disfigurement which accompanies her injury. Her blind eye is shrinking and will continue to do so until it becomes the size of a pea. Therefore she must now wear a prosthesis on her eye.
Stineman, as a young woman of twenty-three, is now suffering from three disabilities: her deafness; her partial blindness; and the further disfigurement. In view of this I cannot say that the damage award was excessive. Further, I do not feel that judges sitting on the Court of Appeals should attempt to substitute their judgment for that of the jury and the presiding judge, all of whom had an opportunity to see the plaintiff in person and to judge the credibility of all the witnesses.
ORDER
This matter is before the Court pursuant to a motion by the appellee to clarify our opinion'. Pursuant to that motion we state that the effect of our opinion in this matter was to affirm a judgment of $600,000 unless the appellee chooses to pursue a new trial on the question of damages. Accordingly, if the appellee files a remittitur and the original judgment is modified, interest at the rate of nine percent shall be awarded from the date of the original judgment. See Rule 37, Fed.R.App.P.; Mo.Ann.Stat. § 408.040 (Supp. 1981) (Vernon’s). Such interest shall be applied to the modified judgment of $600,000.

. Bine v. Sterling Drugs, 422 S.W.2d 623 (Mo. 1968) ($175,000 held excessive); Griffith v. St. Louis-S.F. R.R., 559 S.W.2d 278 (Mo.App.1977) ($150,000 deemed adequate).

. Anderson v. Burlington Northern, Inc., Cause No. 78-26694, Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, State of Missouri, June 29, 1981, currently pending appeal as Cause No. 44977, Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District of Missouri.