Dyal v. Fire Companies Adjustment Bureau, Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 August 1945 |
| Docket Number | 29648. |
| Citation | 23 Wn.2d 515,161 P.2d 321 |
| Parties | DYAL et al. v. FIRE COMPANIES ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, Inc., et al. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Department 1.
Action brought jointly by Robert Dyal and Anne Dyal, husband and wife, and by Fred Crawford and Dorothy Crawford, husband and wife, against Fire Companies Adjustment Bureau, Inc., and Ralph B. Sinclair, to recover damages for personal injuries on property loss sustained in an automobile collision. From a judgment for plaintiffs for amount less than demanded plaintiffs appeal.
Appeal from Superior Court, Yakima County; N. K. Buck, Judge.
J. P Tonkoff, of Yakima, for appellants.
Skeel McKelvy, Henke, Evenson & Uhlmann, of Seattle, for respondents.
This was an action, brought jointly by two sets of plaintiffs, to recover damages for personal injuries and property loss resulting from an automobile collision. The action was tried Before the court without a jury. The court made findings of fact, drew conclusions of law, and entered judgment in separate specified amounts in favor of the respective sets of plaintiffs. Deeming themselves aggrieved by the alleged paucity of the amounts awarded to them, the plaintiffs appealed. The two plaintiffs who were immediately affected by the collision, Anne Dyal and Dorothy Crawford, will hereinafter be referred to as though they were the sole appellants.
At the time of the accident here involved, Mrs. Dyal, accompanied by Mrs. Crawford, was driving her 1940 V8 Ford coupe automobile northwardly along the highway between Yakima and Ellensburg. At the same time, respondent Ralph B. Sinclair, an employee of the respondent Fire Companies Adjustment Bureau, Inc., while in the course of his employment was driving his automobile along the highway in a southerly direction.
It is conceded that Sinclair operated his automobile in a negligent manner, causing it to veer completely over onto his lefthand side of the road and collide headon with the Dyal coupe. In consequence of the impact, the coupe was hurled backward, off its right-hand side of the highway, over an embankment and into a twelve-foot ditch, inflicting the personal injuries and causing the property loss and damage hereinafter described. The only question involved upon the appeal is the sufficiency of the amounts allowed by the trial court to the appellants for the injuries and damages sustained by them.
Mrs. Dyal was approximately twenty-eight years of age; she was a graduate of a beauty school and had been a licensed operator for ten or twelve years. During that period she had also for a time attended a school for modeling, fashioning, and photography, and had done some modeling work. Just prior to the day of the accident she had been working part time as a beautician, earning about one hundred twenty-five dollars a mouth.
With respect to her personal injuries she testified substantially as follows: She sustained a compound fracture of the patella of her right knee; the fracture of several ribs; a fracture of her upper jaw, loosening her front teeth; and a laceration over the left area of her nose. She was confined in a hospital for three weeks, and during that time was placed in a cast extending from midthigh to foot. She was then taken home where she remained, with the cast in place, for about five weeks, during which time she was attended by a nurse. In September, she suffered a nervous breakdown owing to the fact that adhesions had formed in her knee, and she thereupon consulted an orthopedic specialist in Seattle. The specialish removed the cast and, throughout a period of several weeks, gave her manipulative treatments which, because of the intense pain, were performed under an anesthesia. Thereafter she walked on crutches for two or three weeks, and then with a cane for about the same length of time. Her doctors' bills amounted to $170; her hospital bill was in the sum of $185.05; and it was stipulated that she incurred nurse expense to the extent of $250.
The orthopedic specialist testified, by deposition given about a month Before the trial, that, although there was then still some slight restriction in the amount of floxion in her knee, she had practically normal function; that there was no permanent injury to the knee; and that so far as her leg was concerned she was then nearly ready to return to work. The general physician testified that Mrs. Dyal was still quite nervous, for which he was giving her sedatives and hormones. Mrs. Dyal also testified that her teeth had since tightened and that aside from her nervousness and some ache in her knee she felt 'quite well.'
With respect to her property loss and damage, Mrs. Dyal testified that, as a result of the collision, her Ford coupe had been damaged to the extent of seven hundred fifty dollars; and that certain wearing apparel, a wrist watch, eyeglasses, gloves, and a portable radio-phonograph with records, had either been damaged or lost aggregating in value $334.59.
At the trial, Mrs. Dyal exhibited the injured members of her body, and the court later made a formal finding that none of her personal injuries was permanent. The court made a further finding of damages itemized as follows:
Loss of time
$ 750.00
Ambulances
11.75
Glasses
20.00
Personal property loss
200.00
Doctors' bills
170.00
Hospital bill
185.05
Home care by nurse
250.00
Pain and suffering
750.00
Damage to automobile
750.00
Damage to radio-phonograph
75.00
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It will be observed that the court allowed the full amount, as testified to by Mrs. Dyal, for doctors' and hospital bills, nurse care, and damage to the automobile. The full amount expended for ambulance charges was also allowed. The amount awarded by the court for loss or damage to personal property, such as wearing apparel, etc., was $39.59 less than what she asked for. That was undoubtedly due to the fact that the amounts fixed by Mrs. Dyal for most of those items were the original cost prices.
We turn now to Mrs. Crawford's case. Prior to the day of the accident she had been a barmaid working at times in her husband's tavern at a weekly salary of $36.75 and was earning an average amount of eighty or ninety dollars a month. She weighed about one hundred twenty-four pounds.
With respect to her personal injuries, she testified as follows She was thrown out of the coupe, striking her elbows, back, and head upon some rocks lying in the ditch on the right-hand side of the road. Both of her elbows and one leg were lacerated; the upper part of her mouth was fractured, eventually requiring the extraction of two front teeth and the substitution of a partial plate; her right cheek was cut, leaving a scar; the blow upon the side of her head has caused recurrent headaches and twitching of one of her eyelids. She was confined in a hospital for one week and after her release remained in bed at home for two weeks. In October she suffered a nervous breakdown and was confined to her bed for a month. Since then, she has been extremely nervous and has not been able to work regularly. She has lost weight to the extent of about fifteen pounds, and she is now under medical care for her nervous condition. Her doctors' bills amounted to seventy-two dollars, and her hospital bill $38.95.
The doctor who first attended her testified that he had sutured her right cheek and had taken some X-ray pictures but found no fractures, and that, when she was sent home from the hospital, he was satisfied that her injuries were not 'too extensive' except such as 'were obvious on the outside.' He further testified that there would always be some scar on her face, but that it could be improved through plastic work; and that, although she was very nervous at the time he treated her, her nervous condition was not abnormal when he last saw her, two or three weeks after the accident. The physician who attended her later did not testify.
With respect to her property loss and damage, Mrs. Crawford testified that she lost her eyeglasses, valued at $20.60; and that sundry articles of wearing apparel, such as slacks, sport shirt, dresses, shoes, purse, and overnight bag were either ruined or lost. The value placed by her on all the personal property amounted to one hundred thirty-six dollars; and the partial plate supplying two teeth cost one hundred twenty-five dollars.
At the trial, Mrs. Crawford exhibited her physical injuries, and the court later made a finding that those injuries consisted of the 'loss of two teeth, a cut on the upper cheek on the right side of her face resulting in a small scar which is not disfiguring, with some disturbance of her nervous system, and bruises and contusions.' The court made a further finding of damages, itemized as follows:
Loss of two teeth
$ 250.00
Loss of time
480.00
Scar on face
100.00
Glasses
20.60
Miscellaneous items of personal
property lost or damaged
80.00
Ambulance
3.75
Doctor bills
62.00
Hospital bill
38.95
Partial plate
125.00
Pain and suffering
500.00
---------
$1,660.30
Again it will be observed that the court allowed the full amount, as testified to by Mrs. Crawford, for her hospital bill and her eyeglasses. The amount allowed for her doctors' bills was sixty-two...
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