Ewing v. Marsh
| Decision Date | 29 December 1953 |
| Citation | 174 Pa.Super. 589,101 A.2d 391 |
| Parties | EWING v. MARSH. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Edward O. Spotts, Jr., Pittsburgh, for appellants.
Sanford M. Chilcote, William C. Walker, Dickie, McCamey, Chilcote, Reif & Robinson, Pittsburgh, for Frederick M. Marsh.
Before RHODES, P. J., and HIRT, RENO, ROSS, GUNTHER, WRIGHT and WOODSIDE, JJ.
The decedent, Grace Siciliano, was fatally injured in a collision, and her administrator filed suit for damages on behalf of her estate and her children. The jury rendered a verdict in the total sum of $3,000 and the plaintiff has appealed, contending that the verdict was inadequate.
At about 2:00 A.M., on a Monday morning, the decedent left a social club after an evening of entertainment. She rode homeward in the car of the defendant, Rice. There were four persons in the front seat of the car, the decedent sitting on the lap of another man. The automobile crashed into the rear of a truck parked on a highway, and the decedent was rendered unconscious and died seventeen days later. The truck, owned by the defendant Marsh, had run out of gas and was stopped on the road without any rear lights. The defendant Rice said he did not see the truck until almost on top of it and could not avoid the collision. Some friends of his had preceded him by a few minutes and had successfully avoided the truck. The testimony as to the weather conditions was conflicting. The plaintiff's witnesses claimed that visibility was poor; the defendant Marsh introduced contrary evidence. The jury returned a verdict against both defendants in the sum of $3,000. It was corrected, after instructions from the trial judge, to award $1,583.25 to the administrator for the estate and $1,416.75 to the administrator for beneficiaries or children of the decedent.
The plaintiff complains that the verdict is clearly and grossly inadequate. The decedent was twenty-nine years old and left surviving a son, six years old and a small daughter, who died five weeks after her mother. The decedent was divorced, lived with her parents, and occasionally worked on the outside. She had earned $943.71 the preceding year, and $380.80 for the elevenmonth period prior to her death. Her divorced husband was paying $25 per month for the children's support under an order of court. The sum awarded to her estate, $1,583.25, represented the exact amount of the actual medical and burial expenses.
In order that an appellate court may declare a trial court guilty of an abuse of discretion in refusing a new trial for inadequacy of damages, the evidence must compel the conviction that the jury was influenced by partiality, prejudice or passion, or by some...
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Ischo v. Bailey
...1943, 151 Pa.Super. 222, 30 A.2d 161, a judgment of $200 for a wife and nothing to her husband was affirmed. In Ewing v. Marsh, 1953, 174 Pa.Super. 589, 101 A.2d 391, a verdict of $3000 was upheld, the court saying: 'This was low, but certainly not a nominal verdict such as would give rise ......
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Law v. Converse
...Padula v. Godshalk, 192 Pa.Super. 618, 161 A.2d 919 (1960); Simpkins v. Richey, 192 Pa.Super. 46, 159 A.2d 17 (1960); Ewing v. Marsh, 174 Pa.Super. 589, 101 A.2d 391 (1953). See generally, Note, Jury Compromise in Pennsylvania Negligence Actions, 109 U.Pa.L.Rev. 732 4 See the cases cited su......
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Morris v. Peckyno
...A.2d 868. Our own review of the record does not indicate partiality, prejudice or passion on the part of the jury. See Ewing v. Marsh, 174 Pa.Super. 589, 101 A.2d 391. On the contrary, there was such a conflict in the evidence that the jurors were justified in carefully evaluating the testi......
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Morris v. Peckyno
...A.2d 868. Our own review of the record does not indicate partiality, prejudice or passion on the part of the jury. See Ewing v. Marsh, 174 Pa.Super. 589, 101 A.2d 391. the contrary, there was such a conflict in the evidence that the jurors were justified in carefully evaluating the testimon......