Atkinson v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 15 July 1913
• Docket Number: 4,442.
• Parties: ATKINSON et al. v. TAYLOR.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

78 S.E. 830

13 Ga.App. 100

ATKINSON et al. v. TAYLOR.

No. 4,442.

Court of Appeals of Georgia

July 15, 1913

Syllabus by the Court.

The recovery of damages which cannot be legally measured by any other standard than the enlightened conscience of impartial jurors cannot be set aside upon the ground that it is excessive, unless it is manifestly the result of prejudice bias, or corrupt motive. Southern Railway Co. v. Wright 6 Ga.App. 172, 64 S.E. 703; Murphy v. Mancham, 1 Ga.App. 155, 57 S.E. 1046; Merchants' & Miners' Transportation Co. v. Corcoran, 4 Ga.App. 654, 62 S.E. 130.

"Inasmuch as enforced idleness or diminished efficiency in offices of labor is calculated to give rise to mental distress, it is not error to describe the thing by its effects, and call it pain and suffering." Such deprivation or impairment can be classed as "pain and suffering," and the jury may properly be instructed that the law fixes no other measure than the enlightened conscience of impartial jurors. Powell v. Railroad Co., 77 Ga. 200, 3 S.E. 757; Atlanta Street Railway Co. v. Jacobs, 88 Ga. 647 652, 15 S.E. 825; Metropolitan Street Railway Co. v Johnson, 90 Ga. 508, 16 S.E. 49; Southern Railway Co. v. Hutchenson, 136 Ga. 591(1), 71 S.E. 802.

Though the allegation upon that subject might have been subject to special demurrer, mental pain and suffering was charged in the petition as an element of damage; and for this reason, as well as because the allegations of the petition were supported by evidence, it was not error for the court to charge the jury that "the physical injury which incapacitates a man or woman from labor is classified in law with actual mental pain and suffering, such pain and suffering as is charged in the petition."

The use of the word "accident" in an instruction, in which the jury were told that "if inability to labor is the result of an accident or injury, and is the result of the accident or injury charged in the petition, if there is evidence to sustain that, you will take that into consideration with other evidence in determining what the plaintiff in this case should recover for the injury which she claims was sustained," was entirely harmless, since the meaning of the word "accident" was qualified if not entirely eliminated, by the immediate use of the words "or injury" as explanatory thereof, and could not have misled the jury; for all right of recovery was expressly confined, in the latter...