Court Opinion

ID: 9849270
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:37:29.410872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:12.537581
License: Public Domain

*437BECKER, Justice.
I dissent. What was said in dissent in Hurtig v. Bjork, 258 Iowa 155, 138 N.W.2d 62 applies here. But this case constitutes complete abandonment of all criteria for ordering remittiturs except the judges’ own subjective opinion of the amount that may be justified by the evidence. Our former adherence to the proposition that judges will not invade the province of the jury is clearly abandoned.
To quote the note at 48 Iowa Law Review 649, 655, 656, “The court in applying the substantial evidence standard is usually careful to recognize that the damage question is a question of fact peculiarly for the jury to decide and that great care must be exercised so as not to invade the province of the jury. Moreover, it is emphasized that judges must be cautious not to substitute their judgment for that of the jury, and that they must recognize that no two cases will be exactly the same with no two juries returning the same verdict. A close examination of Iowa decisions reveals that the court articulates but does not follow these controls. In most cases where the damages are allegedly excessive, the court essentially reviews the facts and evidence as shown in the record, decides what amount such record will justify, and enters its judgment accordingly. It is striking that a court which frequently has stated that unliquidated damages and damages for pain and suffering are not subject to mathematical computation or cannot be compensated by a money judgment can review a ‘cold record’ where evidence is often conflicting and determine the proper dollar amount of recovery which the evidence will support.” At page 654 the author said: “The Iowa Constitution provides for protection of thé right to jury trial, and the supreme court has been careful to recognize that the province of the jury must not be invaded. Nonetheless, this province seems to have been freely invaded when the court subsequently makes the determination of damages — which is often the crux of the jury’s task. The Iowa court has indicated that it remits to the highest verdict which the evidence will sustain.”
We are no longer careful to note that we do not invade the province of the jury. This, at least, as the merit of integrity; for we do invade the province of the jury in this case. In reality we become the jury. What this court is really doing here is reversing a long line of Iowa cases. This is easily demonstrated by quotation from Primus v. Bellevue Apartments, 241 Iowa 1055, 1065, 1066, 44 N.W.2d 347, 353, 25 A.L.R.2d 565: “We have said precedents are of little value because of the varying circumstances and the imponderables and that each case must turn on its own facts. Dunham v. Des Moines Ry. Co., 240 Iowa 421, 430, 35 N.W.2d 578, 583, 584, points out that in reducing an award or granting a new trial for excessive verdict the court is substituting its judgment on a fact question for that of the jury, ‘ * * * only where the award appears to be unconscionable or clearly not warranted by the record, should the judgment of the jury, in such matters be disturbed.’
“DeToskey v. Ruan Transport Corporation, 241 Iowa 45, 48, 40 N.W.2d 4, 6, 17 A.L.R.2d 826, enunciates the same rule, cites various supporting decisions of this court and quotes from Collins v. City of Council Bluffs, 32 Iowa 324, 331, 332, 7 Am.Rep. 200, 205, a statement that the law imposes on the jury the duty to assess damages in consideration of its fitness to discharge it:
“ ‘Neither in fact nor in law are courts better prepared to discharge it; they are not under the law charged with that delicate duty, and should not indirectly assume its exercise when, according to their judgments, verdicts do not accord with their views in the exact amount of damages allowed. * * * In no case ought a verdict be disturbed unless it is so flagrantly ex*438cessive as to raise a presumption that it was the result of passion, prejudice or undue influence, and not the result of an honest exercise of the judgment and the lawful discretion of the jury.’ ” How can what is said in this case be squared with those holdings? Shouldn’t all such cases, and they are myriad, he overruled? We now state we need no such standards.
By evolution — and by rationalization— we clearly contravene Article I, section 9 of our own constitution by denying a jury trial. In a case like this it is incorrect to say the plaintiff may have a new trial is he so desires. There is no possibility of new evidence that would make a new trial and new appeal more beneficial. It would be cheaper, and better to simply have these matters submitted to us on the record, sans decision by a trier of the fact.
If the jury is there to help represent the combined judgment of the community; as a touchstone with reality, we should not use it simply to reduce its judgment. If this jury had brought in a $5000 verdict and plaintiff appealed for an additur, would we have raised it to $10,000? In DeMoss v. Walker, 242 Iowa 911, 48 N.W.2d 811, we refused to order an additur where the jury brought back a verdict of $100 in a wrongful death action by the estate of a 77 year old woman.
One other point, if this record does not sustain a $15,000 award what happens to defendant’s right to a jury trial with this solution? He has had no jury fix damages at $10,000. Yet we say he must pay that amount if plaintiff elects to take it. See 48 Iowa Law Review, 649, 664.
In this day of changing values it does not seem incongruous for the jury to fix a $15,000 value for the wrongful death of a human being regardless of his or her age. Such a view is even more persuasive where acute pain is involved. Assessment by us of the alleviating effect of hypodermic injections of demerol seems clearly unwise.
I would affirm.