Court Opinion

ID: 9580506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:05:37.328362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:19.232212
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Presiding Judge,
dissenting in part.
While I concur in the judgment of affirmance and concur with Headnotes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the *273opinion (though in my view conclusions as to the charges referred to in Headnotes 3, 4 and 5 are better grounded on the decision and judgment of the Supreme Court in 228 Ga. 461), I am in disagreement with Headnote 10.
This suit, as it stood at the time of the trial, and as plaintiffs counsel stated to the court relative to the charge of the court, made no claim for damages save for wounded feelings, peace and happiness, and was tried in that posture.
Additional or exemplary (sometimes referred to as punitive) damages are recoverable under Code § 105-2002 "either to deter the wrongdoer from repeating the trespass or as compensation for the wounded feelings of the plaintiff.” (Emphasis supplied.) "Either, or” plainly means one or the other; it does not and cannot mean both.
This Code section has been dealt with generally in connection with the pleadings or with the charge to the jury, and it has consistently been held that it is error to so word the pleadings or the charge as to allow the jury to assess damages to deter the wrongdoer and as compensation for the wounded feelings of the plaintiff, since this would allow the jury to assess double damages. See Southern R. Co. v. Jordan, 129 Ga. 665, 666 (2) (59 SE 802); Johnson v. Morris, 158 Ga. 403 (123 SE 707); Georgia R. & Elec. Co. v. Davis, 6 Ga. App. 645 (2), 647 (65 SE 785); John Deere Plow Co. v. Head, 68 Ga. App. 502 (1) (23 SE 2d 523); Metro Chrysler-Plymouth v. Pearce, 121 Ga. App. 835, 843 (1d) (175 SE2d 910). The last case dealt with pleadings. "[T]he jury might have inferred . . . that they would be authorized to award the plaintiff damages for his humiliation and mortification . . . and also damages to punish and deter him from repeating the trespass or wrong. This section of our Code does not provide for the award of such double damages.” Johnson v. Morris, 158 Ga. 403, 406, supra, reversing Johnson v. Morris, 30 Ga. App. 673 (118 SE 766).
Here, instead of pleading or a charge we deal with the argument of counsel, but the principle is the same. As we have noted, the case was tried seeking recovery of damages for the plaintiffs wounded feelings, and plaintiffs counsel so stated both to the court and the jury. But the argument of counsel to which there was objection *274and which the trial court disapproved and disallowed, was directed to the matter of damages for deterring the defendant, and if followed by the jury would have resulted in an award of double damages, just as an improper charge on the matter or improper pleadings might have done. Counsel urged "the purpose of punitive damages, as his honor will charge you, is to deter the wrongdoer. Well, how do you deter a corporation that is worth, by their own testimony, $66,000,000?”
Can this argument, seeking to have damages assessed for deterrence, be allowed when the plaintiff asserts in her petition that she seeks recovery for "injury and damages to petitioner’s peace, feelings, and happiness [which has] caused your petitioner extreme distress, agony and mental anguish?” Obviously not.
It was in the very teeth of the holdings in the cases cited above, and if allowed might very well have resulted in causing the jury to make an illegal verdict. Recognizing this, the trial judge very correctly sustained the objection made and prevented that error from occurring. It was appropriate too, since the argument asserted that such would be the charge of the court. We should not now make the error possible or even probable, but that, I fear, is what Division 10 of the majority opinion does. Indeed, under the holdings in the cases cited the trial judge would have committed reversible error if he had not sustained the objection to the argument made and admonished the jury to disregard it.
Counsel for the plaintiff might have argued that the jury should consider the worldly circumstances of the defendant and thus its ability to compensate the plaintiff in arriving at a verdict that would compensate the plaintiff for her wounded feelings, but he could not, within the law, argue it for making of an award to deter the defendant.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Bell and Judges Clark and Webb join in this dissent.