Court Opinion

ID: 9640403
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:05:29.787682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:37.734305
License: Public Domain

WINTERSHEIMER, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion in this case because I believe it reaches a just result in a difficult matter. In my view, it is appropriate to allow the jury to consider all the material originally decided.
However, I wish to state my views separately in regard to the question of whether a jury is required, as a matter of law, to accept the unrebutted testimony of an expert economist in a wrongful death action in behalf of a child’s estate.
Here the jury returned a verdict which awarded “0” for the destruction of the earning power of the estate of the deceased infant. In the same instruction, the jury awarded approximately $62,000 for funeral and medical expenses as well as pain and suffering. The total was $375,000.
The expert opinion testimony presented referred to the deceased child as an “economic machine” and “8-hour machine” and a “statistical person.” Fourteen working and summary tables were presented to the jury to support the opinion of the economic expert. The jury was asked to assume various facts in support of the opinion of the expert’s computations. Among the so-called facts that the economist asked the jury to assume were the following: that the decedent would fulfill his complete earning power; that he would have a full time job from the age of 17 until the age of 73; that he would never lose a day of work and that he would get paid even if he did not work and that he would work every single week for the rest of his statistical life.
Certainly the use of a legitimate economic expert is an acceptable way of proving wrongful death damages. There is an inference that a child would have some earning power. Rice v. Rizk, Ky., 453 S.W.2d 732 (1970). However, the jury retains the absolute right to determine the weight of the testimony given by any expert and under no circumstances may it be compelled to return a verdict dictated by economic testimony. Adams v. Davis, Ky. App., 578 S.W.2d 899 (1979). The jury is not required to believe the testimony of an expert witness even though it is uncontra-dicted when such testimony is so much at variance with common experience and the usual course of human conduct as to make it unbelievable. Citizens Fidelity Bank & Trust Co. v. Liberty National Bank & Trust Co., Ky., 257 S.W.2d 590 (1953). Here the defense trial counsel made the decision not to present their own economic expert but rather to cross-examine the expert offered by the plaintiff. There is no question that such a strategy is a proper and accepted defense practice. In this case the jury did not believe the testimony as presented by the expert for the plaintiff. The jury awarded “0.”
Similar cases in which the jury has awarded “0” benefits include Spalding v. Shinkle, Ky.App., 774 S.W.2d 465 (1989); Davidson v. Vogler, Ky., 507 S.W.2d 160 (1974); Hargett v. Dodson, Ky.App., 597 S.W.2d 151 (1979).
Rice, supra, does not shift the burden of proof and does not relieve the plaintiff of convincing the jury of a future destruction of earning capacity. An inference is not a substitute for the burden of proof.
I concur in the majority opinion.
SPAIN, J., joins in this concurring opinion.