Court Opinion

ID: 9744032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:52:25.886588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:46.316184
License: Public Domain

HOFFMAN, Judge.
Appellant David J. Canfield, Jr. appeals a jury trial judgment in favor of Melvin and Betty Sandock. The facts indicate that as a result of an automobile-pedestrian accident on October 23, 1986, Melvin and Betty Sandock filed a complaint for negligence against Canfield alleging that Melvin “suf*1238fered temporary and permanent physical injury, temporary and permanent pain and suffering, mental suffering, medical expenses and economic loss.” The complaint also alleged that Betty suffered a loss of consortium. Canfield v. Sandock (1988), Ind.App., 521 N.E.2d 704, 705 (transfer pending). The jury awarded Melvin $125,-000.00 and Betty $50,000.00.
Appellant contends that the trial court erred in modifying a tendered jury instruction which reads:
“At the time of the accident, there was in force a statute of the state of Indiana which provides in part:
No person shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.
I.C. 9 — 4—1—86(b).
A violation of this statute creates a re-buttable presumption of negligence on the part of the person so violating the statute or law, unless the person shows that such violation was excusable or justifiable by showing by a fair preponderance of the evidence that such person did what might reasonably be expected of a person of ordinary prudence acting under similar circumstances who desires to comply with the law.”
The trial court modified the instruction as follows:
“At the time of the accident, there was in force a statute of the State of Indiana which provides in part:
No person shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.
Another statute provides in part that When facing a green light:
Vehicular traffic, including vehicles turning right or left, shall yield right-of-way to other vehicles and to pedestrians lawfully within the intersection or an adjacent sidewalk at the time such signal is exhibited;
Vehicular traffic shall yeld [sic] the right-of-way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk and to other traffic lawfully using the intersection; and
Unless otherwise directed by a pedestrian-control signal, pedestrians facing any green signal, except when the sole green signal is a turn arrow, may proceed across the roadway within any marked or unmarked crosswalk.
A violation of this statute creates a presumption of negligence on the part of the person so violating the statute, unless the person shows that such violation was excusable or justifiable.”
The trial court eliminated the appellant’s tendered definition of excusable or justifiable from the jury instructions. It is the general rule that it is error for the trial court to refuse to define in its instructions technical and legal phrases in connection with material issues of the lawsuit, if the court is properly requested to do so. Campbell v. City of Mishawaka (1981), Ind.App., 422 N.E.2d 334, 338.
The tendered definition correctly stated the proof sufficient to rebut the presumption of negligence raised by violation of a motor vehicle safety statute. Reuille v. Bowers (1980), 409 N.E.2d 1144, 1154. The violation of motor vehicle safety statutes represented a material issue.in the lawsuit. The trial court erred in refusing to use the appellant’s tendered legal definition in the jury instructions.
Appellant argues that the trial court erred in the jury instruction on damages, which reads in part:
“If you find for the plaintiffs on the question of liability, you must then determine the amount of money which will fully and fairly compensate them for those elements of damage which were proved by a preponderance of the evidence to have resulted from the negligence of the defendant. With respect to the claim of Mr. Sandock, you may consider:
1. The nature and extent of Mr. San-dock’s injuries.
2. Whether Mr. Sandock’s injuries are temporary or permanent.
*12393. The physical pain and mental suffering which Mr. Sandock has experienced and the physical and mental suffering he will suffer in the future as a result of his injuries.
4. The reasonable expense of necessary medical care, treatment and services.
5. The aggravation of any previous injury or condition.
6. The effect of his injury upon the quality and enjoyment of his life.”
Appellant contends that the trial court erred in using “[t]he effect of his injury upon the quality and enjoyment of his life” as a separate and distinct element in the instruction for damages.
Indiana eases have stated that damages are not to be predicated alone upon the amount which plaintiff could have earned, if he had not been injured. The jury was entitled to take into consideration his personal suffering and the fact that he has been deprived of most of the privileges and enjoyments common to men of his class.
King’s Indiana Billiard Co. v. Winters (1952), 123 Ind.App. 110, 125, 106 N.E.2d 713, 719;
Norwalk Truck Line Co. v. Kostka (1949), 120 Ind.App. 383, 402, 88 N.E.2d 799, 806;
Samuel E. Pentecost Const. Co. v. O’Donnell (1942), 112 Ind.App. 47, 64, 39 N.E.2d 812, 819;
Chicago, etc. R. Co. v. Stierwalt (1926), 87 Ind.App. 478, 496, 153 N.E. 807, 813.
Dallas and Mavis Forwarding Co., Inc. v. Liddell (1955), 126 Ind.App. 113, 117, 126 N.E.2d 18, 20, ruled that a jury may consider the life expectancy of the individual pri- or to the accident in determining the extent of the injury, the consequent disability to perform the ordinary pursuits of life and the bodily and mental suffering which will result.
The nature, extent and permanency of the injury as it affects the quality and enjoyment of life has been used as an element in jury instructions for damages.
Dunn v. Cadiente (1987), Ind.App., 503 N.E.2d 915, 918 (reversed on other grounds Ind., 516 N.E.2d 52);
Grubbs v. United States (N.D.Ind.1984) 581 F.Supp. 536, 541.
These cases recognize that it is proper for juries to consider the injury’s effect upon loss of enjoyment of life as a factor in calculating damages and not as an independent basis of recovery. The preceding cases coupled loss of enjoyment of life with other damage elements such as pain and suffering or permanency of the injury.
Dayton Walther Corp. v. Caldwell (1980), 273 Ind. 191, 206, 402 N.E.2d 1252, 1261 mentioned the following as a separate element of damages:
“ ‘the plaintiff’s ability or inability to have and to enjoy the pleasures of life that only those who are possessed of sound body and free use of its members can enjoy.’ ”
Antcliff v. Datzman (1982), Ind.App., 436 N.E.2d 114, 121, included “[l]oss of enjoyment of life’s activities” as a distinct element of damages in the jury instructions. In these cases, no issue was raised on whether the trial court erred by using loss of enjoyment of life as a separate and distinct element of damage.
Other jurisdictions have decided that loss of enjoyment of life should not be a separate element of damages, but may be treated as a factor in determining damages for bodily injury. See Annot. 34 A.L.R.4th 293, 300 (1984).
Huff v. Tracy (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 939, 943, 129 Cal.Rptr. 551, 553, ruled that a trial court may not instruct on loss of enjoyment of life in addition to or distinct from general damages. A separate enjoyment of life instruction repeats what is effectively communicated by a pain and suffering instruction.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that even when the victim survives a com-pensable injury, loss of life’s pleasures could not be compensated other than as a component of pain and suffering. Willinger v. Mercy Catholic Medical Center (1978) 482 Pa. 441, 447, 393 A.2d 1188, 1191.
*1240McDougald v. Garber (1989) 73 N.Y.2d 246, 538 N.Y.S.2d 937, 536 N.E.2d 372, ruled that loss of enjoyment of life is not a separate element of damages deserving a distinct award but is, instead, only a factor to be considered by the jury in assessing damages for conscious pain and suffering.
Flannery v. United States (1982) W.Va., 297 S.E.2d 433, 436, 34 A.L.R.4th 281, 286, reasoned that the loss of enjoyment of life is encompassed within and is an element of the permanency of the plaintiffs injury. To state the matter in a slightly different manner, the degree of a permanent injury is measured by ascertaining how the injury has deprived the plaintiff of his customary activities as a whole person. The loss of customary activities constitutes the loss of enjoyment of life.
In the present case, the trial court erred in using “[t]he effect of his injury upon the quality and enjoyment of his life” as a separate and distinct element of damages. The inclusion of the effect upon loss of enjoyment of life as a separate element of damages opened the possibility of an impermissible duplication of damages. To eliminate the possibility of double recovery, the trial court should couple the injury’s effect upon enjoyment of life with the pain and suffering or permanency of injury elements in the jury instructions for damages. This would ensure that the jury considers the injury’s effect upon the enjoyment of life as a component of pain and suffering or permanency of the injury and not as a separate basis of recovery. The trial court erred in its jury instructions.
Reversed.
STATON, J., dissents with opinion.
RATLIFF, C.J., concurs as to Part I and dissents as to Part II, to which STATON, J., concurs with opinion.