Court Opinion

ID: 9595345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:39:14.927377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:15.805128
License: Public Domain

*181Carrico, J.,
dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that the judgment against Virginia Transit and Gamble should be reversed for the reasons assigned in the majority opinion. But I would also reverse the judgment against the administratrix of Haley’s estate and order a new trial because, in my view, the evidence relative to the immoral character of the decedent was clearly admissible.
The majority apparently holds that, as a matter of law, a girl who at age thirteen gives birth to an illegitimate child and at age sixteen is again illicitly pregnant affords the same society to her family as a child of good character and habits. The majority further holds, in effect, that the death of such an immoral girl causes just as much sorrow, suffering, and mental anguish to her family as the loss of a normally moral and well-behaved child.
The fallacy of the position of the majority is found in this sentence of the opinion: “It is a matter of common knowledge that despite such moral delinquencies the parents of a wayward child may have a deep affection for it.” [Emphasis added.] That statement must, of course, be taken as true because anything may happen in the realm of human relationships. But the effect of the majority decision is to say that the parents of a wayward child do have deep affection for it, in every instance. That cannot be said because it is also common knowledge that often the immoral acts of a wayward child turn its parents’ feelings toward it from love to hate.
The very statement that parents of a wayward child may have deep affection for it, despite its moral delinquencies, is recognition of the fact that such affection may not exist at all because of its wanton behavior. In any event, such a situation in a wrongful death case presents a typical jury question where the trier of fact should be permitted to determine what, in view of the child’s waywardness, was the true relationship between the child and its family.
The prejudicial effect of barring from the jury the evidence of the decedent’s immoral character is exemplified by the closing argument of the plaintiff’s counsel. With such evidence excluded, he was free to say to the jury, and the defendants were powerless to reply, that:
■ “ . . . Life is dear to all of us. An elderly person is just, as important and just as valuable to all of us as a younger person, but in the scale of it, if someone hasn’t even reached the prime of *182their life,, a sixteen-year-old girl, isn’t that life worth more in dollars and cents, if you have to compare, than perhaps somebody who is in the sunset years of their life, who’s lived and enjoyed and been with their family for that length of time? But the point I make and suggest to you respectfully, that a sixteen-year-old girl —and in suggesting to you, I think of the American expression ‘sweet sixteen.’ I am not suggesting, I am just saying that is an epitome of youth, sweet sixteen.”
A sixteen-year-old girl—the mother of one illegitimate child and the bearer of another product of an illicit relationship—“sweet sixteen”? We should adopt no rule of evidence which would permit such an absurd argument to be made.
Since the foregoing was written, the majority opinion has. been changed to take note of this dissent. The majority now says that the closing argument of the plaintiff’s counsel was improper, but holds that it will not consider the prejudicial effect, if any, of such argument because no objection was made thereto in the trial court and no assignment of error relates thereto in this court.
The majority misses the point. I have not said, nor have I implied, that the trial court erred, in any manner, with respect to the closing argument of the plaintiff’s counsel. My dissent is directed solely to the error of the court in excluding from the jury the evidence of the immoral character of the decedent. And I say that the original error in excluding such evidence was prejudicial because it permitted the plaintiff’s counsel to argue as he did. Thus, the error and the prejudice resulting therefrom may be reached and considered despite the lack of objection to the argument.
I do not agree with the majority where it states, in its changed opinion,, that the argument of the plaintiff’s counsel “was improper and upon timely objection the lower court would no doubt have so ruled.” Once the evidence of the decedent’s immoral character was excluded from the jury, I think the plaintiff’s counsel was free to present his argument to the jury, however absurd such argument might, in reality, have been, leaving the defendants without proper objection thereto and with no basis for reply.
This brings me to complete disagreement with the majority’s reason for holding improper the argument of the plaintiff’s counsel. That reason is because “there was no evidence to support the implication that the decedent was ‘sweet sixteen’ and innocent of wrong*183doing.” In assigning that reason for its holding, the majority, it seems to me, has not only adopted an erroneous rule but also has taken inconsistent positions in its opinion.
In discussing the defendant’s objection to the granting of Instruction 12, relating to the measure of damages, the majority holds that no direct evidence was required to show that the surviving beneficiaries of the decedent suffered loss of society and were caused sorrow, suffering, and mental anguish as the result of her death. Such loss of society and such sorrow, suffering, and mental anguish may, the majority says, be inferred from the fact of the death of the child. With that I agree. But now the majority holds, in its changed opinion, that it was improper for the plaintiff’s counsel to argue to the jury as he did because there was no evidence to support the implication that the deceased child was innocent of wrongdoing.
The implication that the child was innocent of wrongdoing is entitled to the same dignity as the inference that her death caused loss of society and sorrow, suffering, and mental anguish to her surviving beneficiaries. Yet the majority holds that the inference needs no evidence to support it, while the implication must have evidence behind it before it may be the subject of comment.
I have always considered that a child is presumed to be innocent of wrongdoing. Hence, I think there is no burden upon the plaintiff in an action for the wrongful death of a child to prove the child’s innocence from wrongdoing as a prerequisite to the right to comment thereon in argument before the jury.
I would hold, then, that the plaintiff in an action for the wrongful death of a child is entitled to the inference that such death causes loss of society and sorrow, suffering, and mental anguish to the surviving beneficiaries. I would also hold that such a plaintiff is entitled to the presumption that the child was innocent of wrongdoing. But against that inference and that presumption, the defendant should be permitted to introduce evidence of the immoral character of the child. And I would leave it to the jury to say whether, in view of such evidence, the parents may or may not have had deep affection for the child and may or may not have suffered the same loss as if the child had been, in fact, “sweet sixteen.”
Sneap and Gordon, JJ., join in this dissent.