City of Atlanta v. Jolly

• Decision Date: 09 February 1929
• Docket Number: 18917.
• Citation: 146 S.E. 770,39 Ga.App. 282
• Parties: CITY OF ATLANTA v. JOLLY.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

146 S.E. 770

39 Ga.App. 282

CITY OF ATLANTA v. JOLLY.

No. 18917.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Second Division

February 9, 1929

Syllabus by the Court.

In an action for damages on account of personal injuries, the pecuniary loss resulting from a diminution of the injured person's earning capacity cannot be determined solely from proof that as a result of the injuries the capacity to work has been impaired. There must be some data or facts from which the pecuniary value of such diminution can be determined.

(a) Evidence that a person whose ability to work has been reduced as a result of an injury is a woman, and at the time of the injury conducted a boarding house, in which were about 15 or 18 boarders, and did all the cooking and housework, and that as a result of the injury, which was a sprained ankle, she was unable for a time to walk and to obtain the normal use of her feet, and consequently was unable to attend to her duties in the boarding house, and that the business of the boarding house fell off, and the number of boarders was reduced to about three, in the absence of some data or facts from which the pecuniary value of a diminution, if there was any, in her earning capacity could be inferred, is insufficient as tending to establish the pecuniary value of any diminution in her earning capacity.

An exception to the admission of testimony "as to how long plaintiff was disabled from using her foot" is insufficient, in that it fails to state what the testimony was.

Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; John D. Humphries, Judge.

Action by Mrs. W. H. Jolly against the City of Atlanta. Judgment for plaintiff, defendant's motion for new trial was overruled, and defendant brings error. Reversed.

J. L Mayson and C. S. Winn, both of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.

Hewlett & Dennis and C. L. Padgett, all of Atlanta, for defendant in error.

STEPHENS J.

1. While a person injured may, as compensation for damage in the nature of pain and suffering, without any proof of pecuniary loss, recover damages for impaired ability to work due to a physical injury, as was held in City Council of Augusta v. Owens, 111 Ga. 464, 36 S.E. 830, yet, where a recovery is sought for pecuniary loss resulting from an impaired capacity to earn money, resulting from a physical injury, there must appear some data from which the jury can arrive at the pecuniary value of the injured person's earning capacity both before and after the injury. Rome Railway & Light Co. v. Duke, 26 Ga.App. 52, 105 S.E 386; Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. Anderson, 35 Ga.App. 292 (4), 133 S.E. 63.

While proof of the plaintiff's actual earnings, either before or after the...