Court Opinion

ID: 9571267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:30:23.492908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:14.698775
License: Public Domain

White, C. J.,
dissenting.
I dissent strongly to both the conclusion and the *281rationale of the majority opinion in this case. The opinion, in one arbitrary action, now states that: “The measure of damages for the wrongful death of a minor child should be extended to include the loss of the society, comfort, and companionship of the child.”
There is nothing “limited” about the range of the new measure of damages adopted by the majority opinion.
Admittedly the new rule has an emotional appeal, and from the beginning of the basic concepts of the law, legislatures and the courts have had to deal with the emotional appeals and demands that money be awarded as compensation for a purely emotional loss. A wrongful death action does not arise out of the common law and out of the principles of stare decisis. Our wrongful death statute is purely a legislative creation, and this court, for over a period of 50 years of decisions, has followed its judicial duty in setting out precisely how the measure of damages is to be compensated. After a long line of judicial decisions, without legislative interference, and without dissent, the Legislature enacted the 1945 statute which provides: “The avails thereof-(from a wrongful death action) shall be paid * * * in the proportion that the pecuniary loss suffered by each (heir) bears to the total pecuniary loss suffered by all such persons(Emphasis supplied.) § 30-810, R. S. Supp., 1972. I submit that the majority opinion adopted by this court, in one arbitary action, despite its previous pronouncement of the measure of damages in this case itself, and despite the 1945 statute and the 50 years' of settled and precise determinations and decisions of this court, both before the 1945 statute and afterwards, and despite any interference by the Legislature or without action by the Legislature since the 1945 statute, by judicial fiat is creating a class action on behalf of the next of kin or heirs to recover monetary damages for “society, comfort, and companionship,” and permit a jury to translate emotional, conjectural, and speculative *282sentimental values incapable of having any objective standards applied to them, into an award of money.
With the common assumption by the public and jurors of the presence of liability insurance in damage cases, and with the natural and human elements of sympathy present in the courtroom, it takes no imagination to see the amounts of verdicts that will be returned. In the hands of an imaginative lawyer, marshaling family albums and the testimony of sympathetic friends, and demonstratively organized and staged by a histrionic-minded lawyer, this court will undoubtedly be faced in the future with the almost impossible job of attempting to apply the generalized principles of excessiveness of a verdict to these judgments, which by their nature are an attempt to award money for a purely emotional loss conjectural, speculative in nature, and incapable of measurement or proof by any objective standard or related criteria.
I call attention to the following specific problems:
(1) The outright repeal by judicial fiat of the 1945 statute, which confirmed the court’s continued, consistent, and unrepealed interpretation of the measure of damages in a wrongful death case. I allude to the statute again and particularly to the language “to the total pecuniary loss suffered by all such persons.” The majority opinion skips with a light fantastic toe over this language and this statute. We must remember that we are dealing with a legislative creation here, and not a right that is sourced in judicial decision flowing from the common law. It is absolutely indisputable that this was a corrective statute, enacted in 1945, the purpose of which was to conform the distribution of the avails in a wrongful death action to the established law as to the nature of the damages. The previous 1919 statute was absurdly inconsistent and unjust with reference to the method of distribution, providing for distribution under the intestate laws. This conforming statute accomplished symmetry between the measure of damages *283and their method of distribution. It is inconceivable to me that any other conclusion could be drawn except that the 1945 statute affirmed and enforced the statutory interpretation that the court had placed upon the wrongful death statute for a period of 25 years. The query arises: What authority is there in the court for repealing by judicial fiat section 30-810, R. S. Supp., 1972? And what now, may I ask, is the method or the rule devised to determine the proper distribution of the loss or award?
I submit further that under any application of the rules of statutory interpretation, the statutes must be construed pari materia, that it is assumed that the Legislature was familiar with the law when it enacted the statute, and it is the duty of the court to harmonize the statutes enacted on the same subject, thus this 1945 conforming statute reaffirmed and declared the legislative intent to approve and to follow what had been the settled law in Nebraska for over 25 years at the time of the 1945 statute. I suggest further that it is now 50 years since the court’s original interpretation in 1923, and that the 1945 statute, and the applicable case law, has been followed continuously over the period of the last 28 years, and has existed without dissent or a discoverable attempt to legislate, repeal, or amend the two statutes.
(2) The measure of damages. In the majority opinion, in the last few paragraphs, it is now forbidden to introduce any evidence or to instruct upon the pecuniary nature of the child’s services, parent’s expenses, etc. The majority opinion states: “For the guidance of the court on retrial, we believe that evidence of expenses of birth, food, clothing, instruction, nurture, and shelter which have been incurred or were reasonably necessary to rear the child to the age he or she had attained on the date of death are not properly admissible. We conclude that the investment theory of measuring damages by the amounts expended in raising *284the child is inappropriate and improper” (Emphasis supplied.) Thus the majority opinion seizes upon these pecuniary-related items and says that they shall not be considered. What, then, may I ask is the measure of damages? What is the jury going to be told, under our statute, and the 1945 amendment as to how it will measure the elements of comfort, society, and companionship? The majority opinion seizes upon the decision in Ensor v. Compton, 110 Neb. 522, 194 N. W. 458, in 1923, and states that it itself allows damages’for loss of companionship between the hqsband and the wife. Overlooked and not mentioned in the majority opinion is the qualifying language in the Ensor case that states all damages of whatever nature must be supported by evidence that they have a money value. And the Ensor case says “of such a character that would give advantage to such survivor, and that a disallowance thereof would cause a pecuniary loss to him or her.” And this court in Ensor further stated: “Nothing can be allowed on account of mental suffering or bereavement or as a solace on account of such death.”
(3) The magnitude of the impact of the majority opinion and its reversal and overruling of both case and statutory law can be grasped by reading the following succinct summary of Nebraska law in the case of Wright v. Hoover, 329 F. 2d 72, in which it was stated: “(1) Generally, in a wrongful death action, the measure of damages is limited to the pecuniary loss sustained by the statutory beneficiaries. Darnell v. Panhandle Cooperative, 175 Neb. 40, 120 N. W. 2d 278, 286 (1963); Kroeger v. Safranek, 161 Neb. 182, 72 N. W. 2d 831, 840-841 (1955); see also, Thevenot v. Sieber, S.D.N.Y., 204 F. Supp. 15, 16 (1962) (involving Nebraska law); (2) Where the deceased is an unemancipated child, such pecuniary loss is that which - measured by the present value of a dollar - will be sustained by the parent by reason of being deprived of the child’s services during his minority, and the loss of contributions, *285if any, having monetary value that might reasonably be expected to be made by the child after reaching his majority. Bailey v. Spindler, 161 Neb. 563, 74 N. W. 2d 344, 351 (1956); Shields v. County of Buffalo, 161 Neb. 34, 71 N. W. 2d 701, 714-715 (1955); Forrest v. Masters, 158 Neb. 506, 63 N. W. 2d 777, 780 (1954); Dorsey v. Yost, 151 Neb. 66, 36 N. W. 2d 574, 14 A. L. R. 2d 544 (1949); Fisher v. Trester, 119 Neb. 529, 229 N. W. 901 (1930); Draper v. Tucker, 69 Neb. 434, 95 N. W. 1026, 1028 (1903); (3) In calculating the pecuniary loss to the parent, the amounts which would have been expended for the child’s maintenance and support are deducted from the monetary value of the child’s services and contributions. Shields v. County of Buffalo, supra, 71 N. W. 2d at 714; Forrest v. Masters, supra, 63 N. W. 2d at 780; Dorsey v. Yost, supra, 36 N. W. 2d at 575-576; (4) Pain, anguish, loss of society and companionship are not ordinarily proper elements of pecuniary loss. In re Lucht’s Estate, 139 Neb. 139, 296 N. W. 749, 752 (1941); Dow v. Legg, 120 Neb. 271, 231 N. W. 747, 748-749, 74 A. L. R. 5 (1930); Elliott v. City of University Place, 102 Neb. 273, 166 N. W. 621, 622 (1918).” (Emphasis supplied.)
(4) The rights created under Lord Campbell’s Act in our death statute are statutory in creation and are governed' solely by statute. There is a non sequitur inference in the majority opinion that because the 1919 statute simply mentioned damages, that therefore the statute itself is authority for a non pecuniary measure of damages; such as loss of comfort, society, and companionship. Quite the contrary is true. I do not think Í need to recite the elementary fact that in the event a general statute is enacted giving the right to recover damages, it then becomes a part of the judicial power and the duty of the court to lay down the measure of the damages, to be followed by a jury or a court in making its award. I point out that this court has; consistently and clearly followed its duty in this respect, and more *286importantly, its interpretation and application of the measure of damages has been affirmed and enacted into law by the Legislature itself in the 1945 statute. Courts, generally, and this court, have universally condemned, in all contexts, attempts by trial courts to submit the issue of damages generally to a jury and have spoken quite firmly that it is the duty of the court to set out for the guidance of the jury the measuring standards for its evaluation of the money damages that are awarded in a tort action. The majority opinion dodges this issue completely without any indication of any nature whatsoever as to how the damages are measured except that a jury may award any and all damages that it wants! to as long as they are related to comfort, society, and companionship. I submit that such a position is nothing more than a permission to take money out of one man’s pocket and put it into another’s on the basis of sympathy and sentimental reasons. And in this connection, I call attention to the very material distinction that this court has mad'e, and courts generally, between awards for pain and suffering accompanied by physical injury and loss, as distinguished from speculative awards for sentimental value, such as bereavement, comfort, society, and companionship.
(5) The majority opinon is not consistent with and is a denial of the general principles that this court and other courts have stated with reference to the allowance of compensatory damages. We have stated many times that compensatory damages are the only ones recoverable under our law (with certain exceptions not pertinent here). In general terms, we have stated many times that the law awards damages to a party injured from the negligence of another, not as a punishment of the negligent party, but as compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by the injured party. And correlated to this we have denied and continually and' consistently stated that damages which are uncertain, contingent. sentimental, conjectural, or speculative can*287not be made the basis of a recovery in an action for damages. We have also stated that proof of damages must be made with a reasonable degree of certainty and even though the damages may be real, they are not recoverable if they are too remote or are speculative in nature. I call attention to these basic principles in light of the super charged emotional atmosphere that a competent and zealous trial attorney can create in the trial of a death-damage action for the loss of a minor child.
In conclusion I reiterate what seems to me must be perfectly obvious. This is a statutorily created class action, completely under the control and jurisdiciton of the Legislature. It enacted the statute and over a period of 50 years has adopted and categorically confirmed our determination of the measure of damages, which measure of damages consistently follows the basic principles of damage law under Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. I submit that whatever the majority’s desire may be to change and reform the law of damages to accommodate to the emotional loss of a death of a minor child, that it is our duty as a court to abide by the legislative policy and action in this area. Besides all the other considerations mentioned the effect of such a change on insurance premiums, the matter of the distribution of the avails which question has not been answered in the majority opinion, the acceptance of any principle that the amount of the loss may be extended because the distribution of loss is covered' by insurance, and many other considerations are purely for legislative policy consideration. I submit that the majority opinion, which arbitrarily and in one stroke, after 50 years of settled law and without public hearing or consideration of the different interests and policies involved, and in violation of the 1945' legislative policy clearly announced in the statute, and' unrepealed, simply throws open a death claim for a minor child to a sympa*288thy and sentiment contest in the award of money, and is a serious mistake for us to make.
Newton, J., joins in this dissent.