Court Opinion

ID: 9559793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:35:45.111106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:44.504177
License: Public Domain

Olson, J.
(dissenting)—I cannot agree that it was not error for the trial court to submit to the jury the issue of negligence, based upon the allegation that the bus door was left opened and unattended. For this reason, I would grant a new trial upon the issue of liability. I am also of the opinion that the issue of negligence, based upon the stopping of the bus seven feet from the curb, should not be submitted to the jury upon the next trial of this case.
This conclusion ordinarily would foreclose any discussion of the assignment of error based upon the excessive amount of the verdict. But it is discussed by the majority, and I feel obliged to express my disagreement with their conclusion on it.
*491The majority seem to have no doubt that the issue of liability presents a question for the jury in this case. They also seem to have no doubt that it is within our province to determine the propriety of the jury’s answer to this question by a consideration of their result, that is, the size of the verdict they returned. If this be true in any case, then it appears that we must say that this verdict is impeached by its exeessiveness.
The majority opinion demonstrates that decedent had not been employed gainfully for six or seven years. His wife supported him and their family. His various physical infirmities, and his habit of intoxication, are described. These latter facts make it appear unlikely that he would have lived, let alone have produced any income, for the number of years shown in the life expectancy table for a man of his age.
The verdict of the jury totaled fifty-five thousand dollars. It awarded his widow thirty thousand dollars, which is approximately twenty-five hundred dollars per year for the entire period of his life expectancy. It also awarded an arbitrary sum of one thousand dollars per year for each child during the minority of that child. The apparent assumption is that, for at least the first seven years, decedent would have produced fifty-five hundred dollars per year for his family.
“. . . the pecuniary loss sustained by the statutory beneficiaries for whose benefit the action is prosecuted,” is the measure of damages in a wrongful death action. Kramer v. Portland-Seattle Auto Freight, 43 Wn. (2d) 386, 391, 261 P. (2d) 692 (1953). The cited case states other elements which may be considered by the jury (p. 395 et seq.), and the instructions in this case included those factors. Allowing the jury the latitude it should have, and bearing these factors in mind, this verdict exceeds “any realistic appraisal of the damages suffered” by the beneficiaries. The forty per cent reduction in the award to the widow, made by the trial court to meet its conclusion that the verdict “is a trifle excessive,” appears to indicate its similar view. A new trial *492upon both the issue of negligence and that of damages would remove the unmistakable shadow cast upon the outcome of this case by the size of the present verdict.
Hill and Donworth, JJ., concur with Olson, J.
December 28, 1954. Petition for rehearing denied.