Court Opinion

ID: 9751967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:22:47.917466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:02.414687
License: Public Domain

*430Sybert, J.,
filed the following opinion, dissenting in part, in which Hpndkrson and Hornby, JJ., concurred.
While I concur in the majority opinion as to all of the points discussed except the final one, I find myself unable to agree that it is proper to permit plaintiff’s counsel, in a personal injury case, to suggest and argue to the jury an amount to be allowed for pain and suffering computed on a per diem or mathematical formula basis.
As mentioned in the majority opinion and in Harper v. Higgs, 225 Md. 24, 169 A. 2d 661 (1961), the propriety of the per diem argument as to damages has evoked considerable judicial and other discussion in recent years. The reasoning and the results have been sharply divergent, so that one seeking the weight of authority finds the answer inconclusive. A note at page 189 of the University of Florida Law Review, Vol. XIV, No. 2, published in the Summer of 1961, lists seven states and one Federal Circuit Court as jurisdictions which refuse to permit the argument, and nine states and two Federal Circuits as allowing it in one form or another. North Dakota and West Virginia were not included in the list of the seven states prohibiting the argument. The Supreme Court of North Dakota, in February, 1961, and the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, in June, 1961, reversed judgments and ordered new trials because counsel had used mathematical formula arguments as to pain and suffering. King v. Railway Express Agency, Inc. (N. D. 1961), 107 N. W. 2d 509; Crum v. Ward (W. Va. 1961), 122 S. E. 2d 18. An exact “color matching” of the cases is not entirely feasible, since three general views (with variations) have emerged: the per diem argument should not be permitted as a matter of law; counsel has the right to use it; the matter should be left to the discretion of the trial judge.
I am apprehensive that the majority ruling permitting such formula arguments may prove to be the opening of a Pandora’s box with respect to verdicts in personal injury cases. Unjustified verdicts, as well as an increase in the number of appeals to test the trial judges’ exercise of discretion in the extent of the latitude allowed counsel in use of the argument. *431or in refusing motions for a new trial, may be a not unnatural result. The sounder course would seem to be a holding that the per diem argument is not permissible as a matter of law.
It has long been recognized in this State and elsewhere that there is no fixed rule or yardstick by which to measure with mathematical exactitude the precise amount of damages for physical pain and suffering and mental anguish endured in personal injury cases. It is within the province of the jury to determine from the evidence what is fair and reasonable compensation, and a jury’s verdict will not be disturbed unless it appears that it was influenced by partiality, prejudice, corruption, or by some mistaken view of the evidence. Adams v. Benson, 208 Md. 261, 117 A. 2d 881 (1955); Certified T. V. & Appliance Co. v. Harrington (Va. 1959), 109 S. E. 2d 126; 15 Am. Jur., Damages, § 71, p. 479. The standard of “fair and reasonable compensation” came into use because a more specific one is impossible. Thus it has been the jury’s function to find a verdict representing the independent collective judgment of its members arrived at after evaluation of the evidence in the light of their own intelligence and experience.
The decisions holding it to be prejudicial error to permit use of mathematical formula arguments, whether accompanied by use of a blackboard or chart or without such aids, usually follow the reasoning found in Botta v. Brunner (N. J. 1958), 138 A. 2d 713, 60 A.L.R. 2d 1331, where it was said that in an action for bodily injuries, it is unwarranted intrusion into the jury’s domain for plaintiff’s counsel to suggest in his summation to the jury a monetary mathematical formula, based on a specified amount per hour for the admeasurement of damages for pain and suffering, since there can be no fixed basis, table, standard, or mathematical rule which will serve as an accurate index and guide to the establishment of awards of damages for personal injuries, as there is no measure by which the amount of pain and suffering endured by a particular human can be calculated, and no standard of value which can be applied. The Botta case cites a number of decisions in support of the holding therein. Later cases to the same effect, as well as decisions reaching the opposite result, and authorities per*432mitting the mathematical formula argument when cautionary safeguards are applied, are cited and reviewed in Crum v. Ward, supra, and in the persuasive dissent of Justice Dove in Caley v. Manicke (Ill. 1961), 173 N. E. 2d 209, 217, and it is unnecessary to cite them here.
Any attempt to determine whether or not arguments suggesting dollar values for pain and suffering on a mathematical basis had influenced the jury would necessarily amount to pure speculation, as was noted by Judge Henderson in his dissent in Harper v. Higgs, supra. The North Dakota court in King v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., supra, in answer to an argument that a verdict was justified by the evidence and that defendants’ counsel did not challenge its amount as excessive, said (at p. 517 of 107 N. W. 2d):
“* * * While the size of the verdict is such that we could not say that it shocks the conscience of the court, and while it may not be excessive under the evidence in this case, neither can we say that the size of the verdict was not affected by the use of such figures so improperly given to the jury. Since the definite amounts of per-week and per-year claims for pain and suffering and disability set forth on the sheet used by plaintiff’s counsel are not based on any evidence, permitting the use of such formula was error.”
It would appear to be impossible to assess the psychological impact on the jurors’ minds of the sanctioning of per diem arguments by the trial court. The elaborate computation by counsel versed in the law, the ultimate, often “oversized”, total, may well be accepted by many jurors as the proper method by which awards are calculated. Thus defense counsel are faced with the odious dilemma of either ignoring the question of the value of pain and suffering, thereby implying inability to refute opposing counsel’s figures, or of arguing the point, thus lending strength to the implication that pain and suffering may be evaluated by mathematical formula. Moreover, it is probable that some juries will tend to employ the easy method of determining damages by the sug*433gested formula, rather than by independent judgment based upon the evidence itself.
It is submitted that while it may be theoretically possible, it is as a practical matter seriously doubtful, that cautionary instructions can erase the prejudicial effect of such arguments from the jurors’ minds. Even though the jurors may be told that the argument is not evidence, there has been implanted in their minds (apparently with the approval of the court) the idea that pain can be evaluated at so many dollars per hour, day, week or year. That this is not a proper or reasonable inference from the evidence is manifested by the fact that no one—not even an expert witness—is permitted to testify as to his opinion of the market value of pain and suffering. To allow plaintiff’s counsel to suggest to the jury an amount computed on a per diem basis is tantamount to permitting him to testify—to place before the jury what does not appear in the evidence. See Certified T. V. and Appliance Co. v. Harrington, supra; Botta v. Brunner, supra. It is also argued that no real harm is done in cases of excessive jury verdicts, since the court may set them aside and grant a new trial. This overlooks the sound principle that it is never desirable to sanction practice likely to produce error, and that situations requiring remedial action by the court should be avoided.
It seems to this member of the Court that approval of the per diem argument will tend to render more difficult the affording of fair and impartial trials, for which courts exist. An apt commentary on the practice is found in the words of the Missouri Supreme Court in Faught v. Washam (Mo. 1959), 329 S. W. 2d 588, 604, in reference to the case of Seaboard Air Line Railroad Co. v. Braddock (Fla. 1957), 96 So. 2d 127, cert. den., 355 U. S. 892:
“* * * we find no more incisive and devastating critique of the mathematical formula argument than the action of a Dade County, Florida, jury in returning a verdict for $248,439, the precise amount sought by counsel in a mathematical formula argument, and the action of the Supreme Court of Florida in affirming that judgment without opinion. * * * ”
*434I think the trial court should also have been reversed on this point.
Judge Henderson authorizes me to say that he concurs in this dissent.