Court Opinion

ID: 9586516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:12:20.26571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:41.690230
License: Public Domain

Bell, Judge,
concurring specially. I concur with the result *731and with most of what is said in Judge Carlisle’s opinion but feel that in two particulars further comment is indicated.
Special ground 5 of the motion for new trial urges as erroneous the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury, in absence of request, of a possible decrease in the plaintiff’s earning capacity in the future because of the vicissitudes of old age which should be taken into consideration in awarding damages for permanent injuries.
In urging their point, the sagacious counsel for the defendant in error correctly state that there is an apparent conflict in two decisions of this court, both reported in Volume 105 of the Georgia Appeals Reports. One of these cases was written by Presiding Judge Carlisle of this division (Williams v. Young, 105 Ga. App. 391, 400 (4), 124 SE2d 795), and I wrote the other with Judge Hall of this division concurring (Porter v. Bland, 105 Ga. App. 703, 708, 125 SE2d 713). Strangely enough, under the present confused status of prior decisions on the point, both Judge Carlisle’s Young and my Bland are accurate pronouncements of the law. This anomaly is occasioned by numerous conflicting precedents extant both in the Supreme Court Reports and in the Reports of this court. Although attempts have been made from time to time to reconcile the conflicting views, the efforts have never been convincing and the disorder lingers. For citations of the conflicting authorities and for attempts to reconcile them see generally Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Thomas, 83 Ga. App. 477, 490 (7) (64 SE2d 301); Draper Canning Co. v. Dempsey, 91 Ga. App. 593, 597 (b) (86 SE2d 678); and Williams v. Young, 105 Ga. App. 391, 400 (4), supra.
The question so confused is not at all a difficult one. The solution is simple. Indeed precedent, clear and succinct, already exists which, if firmly approved by sufficient authority, would forever eliminate this contradiction in the law. This court cannot perform the service, as decisions of the Supreme Court are involved on each side of the pickle.
The simple and common sense solution is to be found in the case of Central of Georgia R. Co. v. Ray, 129 Ga. 349, 353 (2) (58 SE 844), where Mr. Justice Evans said: “Complaint is made of an omission of the court, when charging on the subject of *732damages, to call the attention of the jury to the decrease in the earning capacity which naturally results from advancing age, probable loss of employment, inability to labor and to secure work. In the process of reaching a correct result from the evidence, juries may take into consideration such universal experiences in human life, as criteria in weighing the evidence in the particular case. The judge may refer in his charge to such matters as the plaintiff in error complains he omitted in this case. Fla. C. R. Co. v. Burney, 98 Ga. 1 (26 SE 730). The jury are presumed to be as cognizant of these common phenomena of human experience as the judge; and if their attention is specially desired to be directed thereto, a timely written request should be made.”
As Judge Townsend points out in Dempsey, the Ray case has never'been disproved or overruled, and the rule of law which it declared on the subject is a rule of common sense.
Despite its sound logic and its simplicity, although cited numerous times, Ray has been both followed, Merchants &c. Co. v. Corcoran, 4 Ga. App. 654, 669 (62 SE 130); Western &c. R. Co. v. Frazier, 66 Ga. App. 275 (18 SE2d 45); and Draper Canning Co. v. Dempsey, 91 Ga. App. 593, 597 (b), supra; and ignored, Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Thomas, 83 Ga. App. 477, supra; and Furney v. Tower, 34 Ga. App. 739, 740 (6) (131 SE 177).
The rules on the point to be derived from Ray, as explained in Dempsey and Corcoran, where the pleadings and the evidence are sufficient to warrant consideration of the subject, are:
(1) It is never error for the judge to charge in this respect.
(2) In absence of a specific written request, even if authorized, it is not reversible error for him not to so charge.
(3) Where a correct written request is submitted, it is error for the trial judge to fail to so charge.
Speaking for Presiding Judge Carlisle, Judge Hall and myself, we can only announce that in absence of clarification by higher authority or of a clear mandate by the Supreme Court, we shall hereafter apply these rules to every case where appropriate. They are appropriate in this case.
With respect to Division 3 of the opinion which is concerned with the degree of proof required to permit an injured *733minor to recover for loss of future earning capacity, again I think that clarification by higher authority would be most helpful to the bench and bar.
Here the difficulty arises through two confusing Supreme Court decisions, each of which was written by Mr. Chief Justice Bleckley. They are Western &c. R. Co. v. Young, 81 Ga. 397 (4) (7 SE 912, 12 ASR 320) and Western &c. R. Co. v. Young, 83 Ga. 512, 516 (2) (10 SE 197). Compare these decisions with Betts Co. v. Hancock, 139 Ga. 198, 207 (9) (77 SE 77) and with Lanier v. O’Bear, 101 Ga. App. 667 (115 SE2d 110).
My own views on the subject are indicated in my dissent in the O’Bear case. Although the majority of this court, as then composed, apparently felt the other way in O’Bear, I am constrained to the belief that the decisions of the Supreme Court require the result reached by Presiding Judge Carlisle in Division 3 of his opinion, and I, therefore, must concur with it.