Court Opinion

ID: 9793547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:49:51.474267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:05:59.462406
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
By the Court,
Merrill, J.:
In our view there is no merit in appellant’s petition *298for rehearing, confined as it is to a detailed reargument of points expressly considered in our opinion upon the merits, to all of which we adhere. We would ordinarily, therefore, be disposed to deny rehearing without opinion were it not for the fact that upon one point we feel further expression might prove helpful and clarifying. In questioning our statement that should we have been disposed to hold the judgment to be inadequate, the proper remedy would be to remand for new trial, appellant has wholly misconceived the nature of action taken by this court in certain cases. Lest that misconception prove general, this opinion is written.
Cutler v. Pittsburg Silver Peak Gold Mining Co., 34 Nev. 45, 116 P. 418; Konig v. Nevada-California-Oregon Ry., 36 Nev. 181, 135 P. 141, and Knock v. Tonopah & Goldfield Ry. Co., 38 Nev. 143, 145 P. 939, L.R.A. 1915F, 3, were cases in which this court determined that damages were excessive. This court'did not, however, as asserted by appellant, modify the judgment in accordance with its views as to what was suitable. On the contrary, the effect of the action taken was to reverse and remand for new trial with provision made for an alternative to new trial optional with the plaintiff (the party unfavorably affected). As such alternative the court in effect authorized the plaintiff to make partial remission of judgment and ordered that if such remission were made, the judgment be modified and reduced accordingly and as so modified be affirmed. This is a far different thing from the outright modification which appellant seeks of this court. See: Ann. 53 A.L.R. 779; 95 A.L.R. 1163. As stated by the editors in the earlier . annotation:
“The authorities, however, unanimously hold that a court is powerless to reduce the verdict of the jury in an action for unliquidated damages and render judgment for a less amount, unless the party in whose favor the verdict was rendered consents to the reduction, since *299a reduction under such circumstances invades the province of the jury, the proper course, if a remittitur [reduction] is refused, being to set aside the verdict and award a new trial.”
In Campbell v. Sutliff, 193 Wis. 370, 214 N.W. 374, 378, 53 A.L.R. 771, although the proof established without controversy that the plaintiff was entitled to damages in some amount for pain and suffering, the jury allowed nothing for that element. The trial court then fixed such damages at $50. The opinion stated:
“But in the case at bar the court has gone outside the realm of established practice and assessed the damages for pain and suffering as a jury might have done, and entered judgment for such amount without giving .either party the option to consent to the entry of such judgment or to submit to a new trial. Where damages in tort have been assessed by a jury, no court, upon a motion for a new trial, ‘is authorized, according to its own estimate of the amount of damages which the plaintiff ought to have recovered, to enter an absolute judgment for any other sum than that assessed by the jury.’ Kennon v. Gilmer, 131 U.S. 22, 29, 9 S.Ct. 696, 699, 33 L.Ed. 110, 113, 114. Such an order clearly invades the province of the jury, * * Also: Sigol v. Kaplan, 147 Wash. 269, 266 P. 154.
The proper remedy, then, as we stated, is to remand for new trial. Under the circumstances of each case (that remedy being available) the court may, as an alternative, consider the desirability of a consent modification by the party unfavorably affected. As stated in our opinion on the merits, however, the remedy of new trial is not available here.
Rehearing denied.
Badt, C. J., and Eather, J., concur.