Court Opinion

ID: 9446779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:18:02.710419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:46.565452
License: Public Domain

PAUL, District Judge
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion, but feel that it should have dealt more definitely with the question of the reference in the trial judge’s instructions to the amount named in the ad damnum- clause of the complaint.
This was a case of admitted liability where the only question was the amount of damages to which the plaintiff was entitled. The Court first directed the jury to find a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and then, after enumerating the various elements of damages which the jury should consider, told it to fix the damages at such amount as it believed to have been proven “not to exceed the sum of $75,000, the amount sued for in this case.”
Such an instruction is, in my opinion, distinctly prejudicial to a defendant, and particularly so where, as in this case, the only question for decision was the amount of damages. Coming as the final words in the Court’s instructions, the jury takes up consideration of its verdict with a definite sum in mind and with the implication that the Court is of opinion that the evidence warrants an assessment up to the amount named. As said in Otto v. Milwaukee, etc., Ry., 148 Wis. 54, 134 N.W. 157, 160, wherein an instruction of this nature was condemned :
“What other conclusion could they (the jury) reasonably have come to? They must have thought that the *394limit of $5,000 was mentioned for some purpose of an obligatory nature.”
There is no sound reason why the jury should be informed, either by counsel or the Court, of the damages named in the complaint. It is a matter of common knowledge that ordinarily in a tort case, the damages laid in the complaint are in an amount arbitrarily chosen, greatly exaggerated, and having little, if any, value as a measurement of the damage actually suffered. It is being charitable to say that at best they represent the plaintiff’s own opinion of what damage he has suffered. But neither the plaintiff nor anyone else would be allowed to go on the witness stand and testify as to his monetary estimate of the plaintiff’s damages. This being so it is certainly objectionable to get the same estimate before the jury by the unsworn statements of counsel in the course of argument. It is even more harmful, because of the greater weight given it by the jury, when it comes from the bench in the Court’s instructions. The basic evil is that it gives the jury the impression that the amount sued for (the plaintiff’s own estimate) is significant and to be considered as a factor in arriving at such award as the jury may make.
With such an instruction it is difficult to see how a court could, with consistency, set any verdict aside as excessive so long as it came within the amount sued for. No matter how trivial the injury nor how exaggerated the amount of damage claimed no court could logically set aside as excessive an award in the full amount named in the ad damnum when it had, only a few minutes before, told the jury that it was free to find a verdict in that amount.
I am aware that in many of the state courts in Virginia instructions frequently include language similar to that used in the instant case, and that it has been held not to constitute error. At the same time I know of no decision which holds it erroneous to refuse such an instruction. However that may be, the form of instructions is not a matter in which Federal Courts are bound to follow state practice. For the past twenty years or more instructions in the language here in question have not been given in the district wherein this case arose and when tendered have been denied. And this is believed to be in line with the present trend of opinion on the subject. See Botta v. Brunner, 26 N.J. 82, 138 A.2d 713, 60 A.L.R.2d 1331.
I think the time has come for this court to express its disapproval of instructions in such form.