Court Opinion

ID: 9629301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:40:15.608809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:17.601670
License: Public Domain

Donworth, J.†
(dissenting) — I find myself unable to agree with the majority opinion and will briefly state my reasons for dissenting.
The record in this case reveals an unusual situation. In the amended complaint the plaintiffs alleged that the wife,, while a customer in defendant’s store in Seattle, was riding on an escalator and was injured through the defendant’s negligence in that her scalp was nearly torn off by a descending step. The complaint also contained allegations to the effect that, after the escalator was stopped, Mrs. Johnson was not given proper care and attention by defendant’s employees, although she was in fear of bleeding to death and was begging for help. The prayer of the complaint was for $60,000 general damages, and $1,500 special damages.
Several months prior to the trial, plaintiffs filed a notice of trial amendment (quoted in the majority opinion) which stated that the plaintiffs would insert in the complaint a *619separate paragraph, listing the further acts of negligence occurring after the escalator accident consisting of failure to give her reasonable and proper care as follows:
1. In failing to immediately call a Doctor, although literally dozens were available within a few hundred feet.
2. In failing to use proper care in giving first aid due to the wounds of plaintiff: and exposing the plaintiff to untrained personnel who caused the plaintiff severe pain by jabbing her opened scalp and exposed skull.
3. In failing to immediately call an ambulance, after refusing to call a Doctor and in treating plaintiff discourteously and inhumanly thereby rendering her more nervous and making her hysterical, each of which acts of negligence contributed to the pain and agony of the plaintiff and to her disability, both temporary and permanent.
It is to be noted that no change was made in the prayer of the complaint and no segregation of the $60,000 amount originally prayed for, as between the two alleged causes of action, was requested.
At the trial, the court instructed the jury with respect to each cause of action, and in instruction No. 8 told the jury regarding this second cause of action:
You are instructed that a store operating an escalator has a duty to a passenger injured on the escalator to provide care and attention that is reasonable in proportion to the circumstances of the particular situation, and if you find that defendant Marshall Field & Company, or its employees, failed to provide such care and attention to Mrs. Johnson, then, as to plaintiffs’ second cause of action, you shall find defendant liable to plaintiffs for any damages, including pain and suffering, proximately caused by such lack of care and attention.
No exception was taken by either party to this instruction. The jury returned the following verdict:
We, the jury in the above-entitled cause, do find for the plaintiffs in the sum of $ 0 as to their first cause of action, and in the sum of $20,000 as to their second cause of action.
*620The trial court later stated in discussing plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration:
When the verdict was announced I myself was greatly surprised about it. They returned zero on the first cause of action and then twenty thousand dollars on the second, and my immediate reaction was that they made a mistake, they had reversed two causes of action. And then I myself inquired of the jurors while still in the box, did you intend to deny recovery in reference to the accident and did you intend to award damages for the instance that took place during the hour following and they nodded in agreement, yes, that is what they had intended and that is what I think that you referred to.
Defendant moved for judgment n.o.v. or, in the alternative, for a new trial on eight of the nine grounds stated in CR 59.
This motion was twice argued. Originally, it was heard on May 26, 1967, and later, on motion for reconsideration on September 8, 1967. In each instance the trial court orally stated its reasons for its decision to grant a new trial on the second cause of action unless the plaintiffs within 10 days elected to accept a reduced award of $2,500.
On October 24, 1967, the trial court entered its order granting defendant a new trial unless the plaintiffs should consent to a reduction of the verdict from $20,000 to $2,500 within 10 days. Plaintiffs elected not to consent to the trial court’s reduction of the verdict and appealed from its order conditionally granting a new trial as to the second cause of action. The notice of appeal was directed to the Supreme Court of the state of Washington, but the case was subsequently transferred to Division One of the Court of Appeals for hearing and decision.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order and stated:
Thus, while the trial judge erred in granting a new trial on the grounds of passion or prejudice, the order was correctly based on the failure of substantial justice. The order appealed from is affirmed.
Johnson v. Marshall Field & Co., 1 Wn. App. 655, 463 P.2d 645 (1969).
*621The test to be applied is whether the amount of the verdict shocks the conscience of the appellate court. See Hogenson v. Service Armament Co., 77 Wn.2d 209, 461 P.2d 311 (1969), and cases cited therein.
The trial court’s reasons for conditionally granting a new trial were stated as1 follows:
The amount of the award was such that the court was and is shocked by the amount. Such an amount cannot be justified. It is a gross miscarriage of justice. There was no testimony by any medical witness that the care and attention subsequent to the accident in any way contributed to the injuries or inhibited the plaintiff’s recovery from those injuries. Three doctors were called and there was no testimony that the defendant’s care and attention was improper. There was, further, no testimony that the defendant’s care and attention, had it been improper, was a proximate cause of any additional injury or any aggravation of the existing injuries.
The jury had already determined that the primary injury (the laceration of the head and assorted bruises) was not the fault of the defendant. The judgment on the plaintiff’s first cause of action has been entered in favor of the defendant.
In my opinion, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in conditionally granting a new trial. The applicable decisions of this court are cited and discussed in the decision of the Court of Appeals.
It should be borne in mind that we cannot consider the adequacy or inadequacy of the jury’s verdict on the first cause of action. However much we may sympathize with appellants because the wife was denied any recovery for the serious injuries she received in the original accident, that phase of the case cannot be considered at this stage of the proceedings.
I see no occasion to extensively discuss the matter of passion and prejudice as a separate ground for granting a new trial. While appellants assigned error to the order appealed from (granting a new trial) and the court erred in holding in its order that there was passion and prejudice, actually, the trial court’s order was inconsistent in this *622respect.11 agree with the majority that the trial court erred in granting a new trial on the ground of passion and prejudice. Nevertheless, I am firmly of the opinion that, for the reasons stated by the trial court (quoted above), the amount of the verdict is flagrantly outrageous and extravagant in the light of the evidence. Mrs. Johnson’s treatment by respondent’s employees, or their lack of proper care given her during the period of 45 minutes before they obtained the ambulance for her, could not, in view of her own testimony, have possibly resulted in $20,000 damages to her.
Therefore, I would hold that the verdict shocks the conscience of this court, and would affirm the trial court’s order conditionally granting a new trial in this case.
Accordingly, I dissent from the majority’s reversal of that order.

Justice Donworth is serving as a justice pro tempore of the Supreme Court pursuant to Const. art. 4, § 2(a) (amendment 38).

See 1 Wn. App. 655 at 659-660.