Crouter v. Rogers
| Citation | 227 N.W.2d 845,193 Neb. 497 |
| Decision Date | 10 April 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 39739,39739 |
| Parties | Frederick L. CROUTER, Appellee, v. William ROGERS, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Nebraska |
Syllabus by the Court
Where recovery is not a mere matter of computation and depends upon the intangible and quite subjective elements of pain and suffering, and emotional distress, it will not be interfered with unless it is so excessive as to be indicative of prejudice, passion, partiality, or corruption on the part of the jury.
Hurt & Gallant, James A. Gallant, Scribner, Charles B. Beckenhauer, Jr., West Point, for appellant.
Wilbur C. Smith, Eileen A. Hansen, Smith & Hansen, Omaha, for appellee.
Heard before SPENCER, BOSLAUGH, CLINTON and BRODKEY, JJ., and RONIN, District Judge.
This is an action brought by Frederick L. Crouter, plaintiff, to recover damages in a civil action for an assault upon his person by William Rogers, defendant. An answer and cross-petition was filed by the defendant, William Rogers, alleging that the plaintiff, Frederick L. Crouter, had committed an assault and battery against the defendant. The case was tried to a jury which returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $1,000 against the defendant on plaintiff's petition and for the plaintiff on the defendant's cross-petition. Defendant appeals from the judgment entered against him.
The incident which gave rise to this lawsuit took place on March 30, 1973, in front of the Cuming County courthouse in West Point, Nebraska. The plaintiff, his wife, and his mother-in-law had arrived at the courthouse just prior to the time set for a contested conservatorship hearing of the plaintiff's mother in which the defendant, her friend, was nominated to be appointed her conservator.
The facts of the altercation are in dispute. Briefly stated, the evidence in the record of this case is sufficient that the jury could have found by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant approached the plaintiff in a threatening manner and, after some loud accusatory words, the plaintiff told the defendant that he had a tape recorder in his hand and he was recording the conversation, and that the defendant 'would be prosecuted.' The defendant thereupon 'bumped' plaintiff with his shoulder and proceeded to grab the tape recorder and, after a struggle for possession of it, the defendant succeeded in forcibly taking it from the plaintiff and damaging it by slamming it into the pavement. Thereafter the defendant threw the tape recorder at the plaintiff or in his direction. The tape itself was not destroyed and was received in evidence.
The defendant assigns as error that the court submitted to the jury the issue of plaintiff's damage, alleging there was no evidence of any damage. The testimony of the plaintiff in substance relates his experiencing mental anguish, humiliation, and emotional distress as a result of the assault, and that he discussed his problem with psychiatrists with whom he was associated, the plaintiff's profession being that of a psychologist. The trial court properly submitted to the jury the issue of damages in this case. Restatement, Torts, S. 903, Comment a; 22 Am.Jur.2d, Damages, Ss. 309, 310, pp. 407, 409.
The defendant's second assignment of error is that the jury's verdict is excessive. In the recent case of Anson v. Fletcher, 192 Neb. 317, 220 N.W.2d 371 (1974), our court held: 'Where recovery is to be had for such subjective elements as the mental anguish caused by a humiliating beating, and the pain and suffering resulting therefrom, an appellate court ought to be very reluctant to substitute its judgment for that of a jury whose function it is to fix recovery.' Our court then cited with approval Stewart v. Ritz Cab Co., 185 Neb. 692, 178 N.W.2d 577 (1970), as follows: 'It appears from our cases that where the recovery was not a mere...
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Holmes v. Crossroads Joint Venture
...as the mental anguish caused by a humiliating beating, and the pain and suffering resulting therefrom. . . .'" Crouter v. Rogers, 193 Neb. 497, 498, 227 N.W.2d 845, 847 (1975). See, also, Stewart v. Ritz Cab Co., 185 Neb. 692, 178 N.W.2d 577 (1970). Even in a situation in which the reviewin......
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...v. Gottschalk, 218 Neb. 879, 359 N.W.2d 813 (1984); Bishop v. Bockoven, Inc., 199 Neb. 613, 260 N.W.2d 488 (1977); Crouter v. Rogers, 193 Neb. 497, 227 N.W.2d 845 (1975); Sabrina W. v. Willman, 4 Neb.App. 149, 540 N.W.2d 364 (1995). We have not specifically addressed whether such damages ar......
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...plaintiff's testimony provided only evidence of embarrassment and mental anguish in case of false imprisonment); Crouter v. Rogers, 193 Neb. 497, 227 N.W.2d 845 (1975) (determining that once assault is proved, plaintiff's testimony of mental anguish, humiliation, and mental distress experie......
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Bergman by Harre v. Anderson, 85-825
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