Court Opinion

ID: 9564095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:54:17.639052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:13.598891
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
1. Appellant contends the plaintiff sought “compensatory damages” in his complaint (i.e., sought damages for other injury than injury to feelings). The plaintiff alleged his metal gas container had been wilfully converted, and that this “resulted in plaintiff’s peace, happiness and feelings being violated.” He prayed generally for “compensatory, nominal, aggravating [sic] and additional damages in the amount of $10,000,” but he showed no basis for compensatory damages for conversion of the container (Morgan v. Black, 86 Ga. App. 775 (72 SE2d 558)) and sought nothing for the value of the can or its physical loss; and he was expressly awarded damages for injury to his feelings upon a finding that that was the sole injury.
2. The defendant, still toiling earnestly to make sense of the statute, compels us now to say outright that it is a badly written statute. It is of uncertain origin and even in Georgia has remained “substantially undefined,” (Hodges v. Youmans, supra, p. 486; and see Chapman v. Western Union Tel. Co., 88 Ga. 763, 774-775 (15 SE 901)); and has caused nothing but confusion. There never has been an attempt to reconcile it with the fact that damages for wounded feelings are recoverable with or without other injury under other Georgia law. If the statute was an attempt merely to provide a special recovery (including consideration of defendant’s wealth) in a case involving only wounded feelings (see Central R. Co., supra, p. 712), it failed insofar as it implies there is a cause of action for wounded feelings *500only if there is no other injury in the case. See Westview Cemetery, supra at 544; Chapman, supra at 775.
Decided May 30, 1986
Rehearing denied June 25, 1986
John E. Bumgartner, for appellant.
Stephen L. Berry, for appellee.
3. The provision allowing consideration of the parties’ “worldly circumstances,” which we found not to be in issue in this case, is the worst problem. We did not hold that the plaintiff can inquire into defendant’s worldly circumstances in cases where the alleged tort resulted in injury to person or property. Because a provision for consideration of defendant’s worldly circumstances exists in Georgia only in this statute, it is allowed only where the entire injury is to peace, happiness or feelings. If there are other compensable injuries and the plaintiff opts to forego compensatory damages and recover only for wounded feelings, he is not entitled to a consideration of defendant’s wealth.
In Wilson v. McLendon, 225 Ga. 119 (166 SE2d 345), the Supreme Court said this provision is a punitive measure designed to deter gross misconduct by making a defendant “smart” according to his wealth. But the case did not attempt to reconcile that explanation. The statute requires us to say that if a defendant wilfully hurts a plaintiff’s feelings, he will be punished according to his wealth; but if he wilfully hurts the plaintiff’s feelings, burns down his house, and puts out his eye, the defendant’s wealth is safe. This is indefensible. The provision probably should appear, if at all, in the punitive damages statute with regard to all wilful torts of aggravating circumstances. See Justice Hill’s dissent, Westview Cemetery at p. 548.

Motion for rehearing denied.