Court Opinion

ID: 5446095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 18:10:59.060443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:32:11.661845
License: Public Domain

De Haven, J., concurring.
I concur in the judgment. The measure of damages in actions by a parent for the death of a child, when the facts are not such as to warrant exemplary damages, is correctly stated in section 763 of Shearman and Bedfield on Negligence, as follows: “The damages recoverable by a husband, parent, or master for a negligent injury to the person of his wife, child, or servant are strictly limited to an amount fully compensatory for the consequent loss of service for a period not exceeding the minority of the child, or the term of service of a servant, and the expenses which the plaintiff has incurred in consequence of the injury, such as for surgical attendance, nursing, and the like.”
The sixth instruction given upon the request of plaintiff, to the effect that “ in estimating the damage sustained by her the jury is not limited by the actual pecuniary injury sustained by her by reason of the death of her child, but such damages may be given as under all the circumstances of the case may be just,” is contrary to this rule, and was erroneous. The object of section 376 of the Code of Civil Procedure is not to give redress or compensation for the mental distress of a mother, consequent upon the death of her child. The general language of *521section 377 of the Code of Civil Procedure, that in actions of this character, " such damages may be given as under all the circumstances of the case may be just,” is used with reference to the fact that the damages which are allowed to be recovered by sections 376 and 377 of the Code of Civil Procedure are, with the exception of the expenses incurred by the plaintiff in consequence of the injury resulting in the death for which they are claimed, prospective in their nature, relating as they do to the loss of future service, and necessarily based upon probabilities, and upon data which in many respects are uncertain, and therefore the estimate of such damages must necessarily call for the exercise of a very large discretion upon the part of the jury; and all that is meant by the language quoted is, that the jury shall, in view of all the circumstances of the case, and considering also the age and the ability of the deceased to serve the relative for whose benefit the action is brought, give such damages as they shall deem just, keeping in view that such damages are to be measured by what shall fairly seem the pecuniary injury or loss to the plaintiff.
Hearing in Bank denied.