Court Opinion

ID: 9551480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:54:14.471394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:59.831260
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, C.J.,
dissenting.
I dissent for the reasons stated in my dissenting *327opinion in Flansberg v. Paulson, 239 Or 610, 618, 399 P2d 356, 360 (1965). Regardless of what refinements this court makes in distinguishing general and special damages, the present case, as well as our previous cases, demonstrates that juries view plaintiff’s damages as an indivisible unit rather than a composite of the separate legal elements of general and special damages.
There is no reason why a jury should not be permitted to measure defendant’s fault solely in terms of plaintiff’s medical costs or other items which are denominated special damages, even though the plaintiff received injuries which caused him pain and suffering.
We took a step forward in Saum v. Bonar, 258 Or 532, 484 P2d 294 (1971); we should now go the whole way and permit the jury to fix the measure of damages without referring to the type of damage which is being allowed.