Court Opinion

ID: 9543695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:48:07.976774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:55.019036
License: Public Domain

*72WOLFE, Justice.
I concur with the prevailing opinion in its holding that there was evidence from which the jury could find the respondent negligent. Further that the two tables — Exhibits “G” and “H” — were admissible as guides to inform the jury and to provide it with computations already made to aid with subsidiary facts required to be found by it. I do not think that the verdict is excessive. This man lost his right arm. A second slight operation was necessary after the completion of the amputation. In both operations there was pain and suffering. The first operation was of a pronounced type and attended by considerable shock. Five months after the injury the defendant was suffering from pain due to impingement of the nerve, and no estimate as to its permanency was possible.
This young man has a long way to travel through life with one arm missing if he lives his expected period. He may be able to get work which would pay him something, but during the free periods in the labor market he may not be able to get any work.
The fact that had the plaintiff lost his right arm in an employment where our Workmen’s Compensation Law, U. C. A. 1943, 42-1-1 et seq., was applicable, he would get approximately $15,000 is not persuasive that the instant verdict is excessive. In the first place, the award under the compensation is clear. No attorney’s fees are generally chargeable to the injured employee. Also, under compensation theory workmen injured without fault, and even by their own fault if the injury was not wilfully inflicted, could obtain compensation for their loss while others who might recover large damages give up the right to recover damages in order that the levelling, averaging and pooling process inherent in the compensation philosophy may be applied. Thirdly, present compensation for the loss of an arm is in view of the present cost of living palpably inadequate.
*73The verdict in this case was liberal, but not excessive and was not such as to show passion or  prejudice in the granting of it.
Also, it is quite possible that the jury may have taken too much from the verdict for the plaintiff’s contributory negligence. And from this the plaintiff has no recourse. It is quite likely that the jury looks at these cases realistically by determining what net amount the plaintiff should receive to see him decently through life and then makes the verdict high enough so that its guess as to the amount the plaintiff should be penalized for his contributory negligence when substracted will bring the verdict to the amount they think he should receive. Of course, such mental operations cannot be proved and are not in accord with the purpose of the act, but it is very difficult to prevent a jury from so arriving at a verdict in this fashion. And if so, as before stated, the amount which the jury may subtract for contributory negligence, if it finds there was such, may be excessive but the net verdict may itself be not out of the way.
Present verdicts doubtless seem very high in view of past experience in this state, but it is just as valid a conclusion that injured men may have been awarded too little in the past as it is that they are awarded too much now.. Perhaps both are the case. In view of present cost of living and continuing inflation, I cannot say that the verdict is excessive.