Court Opinion

ID: 9738222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:45:29.942576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:04.567017
License: Public Domain

SHINN, J.
I dissent. The court properly excluded the testimony of the actuary. That testimony would have shown that it would take from $34,000 to $88,000, invested at 2 per cent, 3 per cent or 4 per cent, to return $200, $300, or $400 per month for a period of 25 years or a period of 28.9 years. Plaintiff makes conflicting contentions respecting the purpose of the offer of this testimony. It is claimed that it was evidence tending to prove some fact in the case, and it is also contended that it was merely a mathematical calculation offered as an aid to the jury in the solution of a mathematical problem. I think the clear purpose of the offer was to prove the cost of an annuity that would return some amount monthly to the dependents of the decedent for the term of his life expectancy. If the law made that the basis of a recovery in a death case, the testimony of the actuary would have been evidence as to a fact in issue. Of course that is not the basis upon which damages are fixed. If, therefore, the purpose was merely to prove the cost of an annuity, the evidence was properly excluded. Upon the other hand, if, as plaintiff also claims, the calculations of the actuary were offered in evidence merely to aid the jury in solving a mathematical problem, the testimony was properly excluded. The present value of deferred payments cannot be determined mathematically unless the date and amount of each deferred payment are Imown. Where they are known it is proper for a court or jury to fix the present value of the total of the deferred payments. The court may receive the testimony of experts as an aid in making the computation, just as it may resort to the use of interest tables, but the testimony is not evidence of any fact in issue. When the court uses an interpreter to translate the testimony of a witness, it is the witness, and not the interpreter, who gives the evidence. It has never been considered necessary to prove the multiplication table by experts, although their assistance in the use of it is often of value. But in the present case the calculations should not have been used at all. The impossibility of reducing antic*829ipated deferred payments to a cash value is too clear to admit of argument. It would have been necessary for the jury to find what would have been the contribution of the decedent each month of each year from the 40th to the 67th year of his life. Manifestly impossible.
Let us analyze plaintiff’s contentions a bit further. The jury, it is said, was deprived of evidence which would have enabled it to fix the present value of deferred payments. What is the consequence ? It could only be that after determining the total of the amounts that would have been received by the dependents, the jury failed to reduce the same to its present value or, in other words, that the verdict was larger than it would have been if the jury had applied the mathematics used by insurance companies in fixing the amounts to be charged by them for annuities. The reduction to present value of the total of deferred payments is something which is of interest to the debtor, not the creditor. This is shown by the statement of plaintiff’s attorney that “it would not be fair to defendants to merely multiply the monthly or annual support by the number of months or years the jury believed he would have supported his heirs, because the money could be invested and would earn interest” etc. In my opinion, it would be a serious mistake to even suggest to a jury that they should make an effort to fix the present value of deferred payments in an action for wrongful death, where the anticipated contributions would extend over a long period of time (in the present case into the 68th year of the lifetime of the deceased), and when it would be impossible to know the exact amounts that would have been contributed and the exact period over which they would have extended. The problem involved in arriving at a just amount of the recovery in a case of this sort is one of great difficulty. The approach to it should be made as simple and direct as possible. The trial court was eminently correct in excluding the offered testimony of the actuary. Furthermore, it was stated that no objection would be made if plaintiff’s attorney wished to give to the jury, in argument, his own calculations along the lines of those attempted to be proved by the actuary. This was all plaintiff’s attorney had a right to do. If plaintiff would have derived any advantage from the use of' the tables as evidence, it would have been an undeserved advantage.
The claimed misconduct of defendants’ attorney was not *830misconduct at all. It was entirely proper to object to the use of the calculations as those of the actuary, which had been offered as evidence and excluded. In assigning the attempted use of the figures as misconduct, the use of the word “reprehensible” is not subject to criticism. Under the authorities, it is necessary to assign improper statements in argument as misconduct, in order to save the point. The trial judge ruled that the objection registered by counsel for defendant was well taken. Reprehensible conduct is conduct that is subject to censure. If it is not in bad faith it is not misconduct. If it is in bad faith, it is subject to censure, or reprehensible. There is no merit whatever in the claim that counsel for defendants was guilty of misconduct in the choice of words employed in the assignment of alleged misconduct of opposing counsel. Minor clashes are of frequent occurrence where counsel are alert and aware of their duties to their clients. Such passages between counsel as the one in question have never been recognized as misconduct or as justifying a reversal. I do not believe that plaintiff’s attorney in his reference to the actuary acted in bad faith. But that is. not the question. I am well satisfied that the attorney for defendants acted in good faith and properly in reserving the point of alleged misconduct. If there was a sting in the word “reprehensible” it was effectually removed by the statements of the court, as follows: “THE COURT: I think Mr. Sperry has not intentionally over stepped any line and I am sure he wouldn't want to do that and hasn’t done it intentionally, but I think any presentation that you make, Mr. Sperry, ought to be your own deductions from the evidence presented. You are at liberty to do that.
“MR. SPERRY: Am I not entitled to tell the jury what amount it would take now to yield that amount.
‘‘ THE COURT: As your calculation, you can make it, but I think you are not entitled to undertake to quote any authorities on that subject.”
Plaintiff’s announced theory, presumably, was placed before the jury during the argument. If it was given their consideration, which plaintiff’s counsel told the jury it should have, the natural consequence would have been to reduce the amount of the verdict that otherwise would have been rendered.
The main opinion does not place a reversal upon the ground of inadequacy of the damages—a far more serious *831question than the one adopted as ground for a reversal. The verdict of $12,000 was small. Another jury might have returned a much larger verdict. That a verdict is small is not, in itself, a ground for reversing a judgment in order that there may be a new trial of the issue of damages. It is the duty of the trial judge, in passing upon a motion for new trial, to determine whether the verdict accords with the weight of the evidence. He exercises a broad discretion in deciding this question. A reviewing court should not disturb a verdict as to amount unless it clearly appears that it was arrived at in disregard of the evidence. This question must be decided, having in mind that the trial judge has made a careful review of the evidence and has determined that the verdict is not an unreasonable one. It is true that much larger verdicts have been sustained in comparable situations, but this is not a ground for holding that the present verdict was reached without a fair consideration of the evidence. A comparison of one verdict with other verdicts in comparable cases proves only that the verdicts of some juries are larger or smaller than those of other juries and in very substantial amounts. These are conditions which always have been and will continue to be inherent in the jury system. There is a wide diversity of view among individuals as to the value of money and the uses that should be made of it. That is why we have Tiffany’s on one side of the street and Woolworth’s on the other. I am of the opinion that the verdict was not so small as to require a retrial of the issue of damages. The judgment should be affirmed.
A petition for a rehearing was denied February 28, 1946. Shinn, J., voted for a rehearing.
Respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 1, 1946.