Court Opinion

ID: 9640405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:05:29.795066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:29.555532
License: Public Domain

LOVETT,
Special Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur that the trial court erred when it denied the Motion for New Trial on the issue of damages recoverable by the Estate. The jury verdict of “0.00” for destruction of a child’s power to earn money is inadequate as a matter of law.
Respectfully, I dissent from Part II of the majority opinion whereby upon retrial the jury will be instructed to consider the amounts paid to the parents for loss of affection and companionship when rendering its verdict upon a separate cause of action.
Let there be no question: This Court mandates the trial court to present irrelevant evidence to the jury. This is self-evident. In O’Bryan v. Massey-Ferguson, Inc., Ky., 413 S.W.2d 891, 893 (1966), the court said:
“The term ‘relevant’ as applied to evidence means that the evidence tends to establish or disprove an issue in litigation. ‘Where there is nothing in the issues presented to warrant the proof offered, it is properly excluded.’ 20 Am. Jur., Evidence, Section 247, p. 241.”
The award by the first jury to the parents for loss of affection and companionship does not tend to establish or disprove the only issue now to be presented to the second jury, to wit, an award for the destruction of the child’s power to earn money.
As all text authorities emphasize, there is no occasion to consider any of the rules of evidence, until first the basic determination is made that the information offered is relevant. For centuries, “relevance” has been the evidentiary gate keeper of Anglo-American jurisprudence. A nebulous thought that it will “avoid injustice” is an unworthy substitute. I cannot accept the principle that a jury should be presented with irrelevant evidence because otherwise “injustice” will result.
Indeed, the award by the retrial jury may be influenced — up or down — if the jury is told of the award to the parents in the first trial for loss of affection and companionship. Similarly, evidence that the parents are rich, or poor, or are child abusers, might likewise influence the jury and “avoid injustice”. Once our legal system accredits irrelevant evidence to a jury to “avoid injustice,” where, when, and how do we get off that roller-coaster?
*676In my judgment, Young v. J.B. Hunt Transportation, Inc., Ky., 781 S.W.2d 503 (1989) and Commonwealth v. Reneer, Ky., 734 S.W.2d 794 (1987) cited in the majority opinion are distinguishable. Both cases hold the jury may be instructed as to the legal effect of clearly admissible evidence. Before us now is the issue whether to instruct the jury to consider otherwise inadmissible evidence.
The jury instruction mandated can be based only upon pure speculation that the jury in the first trial did not follow the Court’s instruction on the methodology to reach its damages verdict. I think this lack of respect for the jury is ill-founded. More likely is the main hypothesis urged by Appellant that the jury discredited the testimony upon this one issue leading to its unsustainable verdict.
The majority opinion follows the pattern in the recent case Hall v. Commonwealth, Ky., 817 S.W.2d 228 (1991) so as to countenance presentation to the jury of otherwise inadmissible evidence in order to provide “background information.” This Court should not introduce a medicine which will cause a sickness worse than any cure it purports to effect. Instructing a jury to take into consideration irrelevant, inadmissible evidence advances a precedent which we will sorely rue.
COMBS and LEIBSON, JJ., join in dissent.