Hill v. Com., Bureau of Corrections
| Decision Date | 15 March 1989 |
| Citation | 555 A.2d 1362,124 Pa.Cmwlth. 172 |
| Parties | Clifford B. HILL, Jr., Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, BUREAU OF CORRECTIONS, Appellee. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court |
Jerome J. Reitano, Philadelphia, for appellant.
J. Matthew Wolfe, Deputy Atty. Gen., Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before CRAIG and BARRY, JJ., and NARICK, Senior Judge.
Clifford B. Hill, Jr. appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County that denied Hill's motion for a new trial on the grounds of inadequacy of damages after a jury rendered a verdict in his favor in his negligence suit against the Bureau of Corrections (bureau) for personal injuries.
The issue is whether the trial judge abused her discretion by denying Hill's motion, where the jury found the bureau to be 100% liable for his injuries but awarded only $1800 damages beyond payment of his medical bills, which totaled $5,844.
Most of the material facts of this case are not in dispute. On May 12, 1984, Hill, an inmate of the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, was trying out for a prison baseball team. The practice session was taking place on the athletic field on the prison grounds. The field also was used for playing football in the fall. When the field was set up for football, goal posts were installed in holes in the field containing metal sleeves. When the goal posts were not in place, the holes were covered by caps that screwed snugly onto the sleeves but were not otherwise locked or secured.
As Hill was running to catch a fly ball hit toward him in the outfield, his left foot became caught in a goal post hole from which the cover had been removed. Hill fell backward to the ground, fracturing his ankle in three places. After some of the other ballplayers carried Hill from the field, he was taken to Montgomery Hospital. There Dr. Bruce Menkowitz diagnosed Hill as suffering from a trimalleolar fracture of the left ankle. The next day Dr. Menkowitz performed open reduction internal fixation surgery on Hill's ankle, which involved making two separate incisions and securing the fractures with five metal screws and one plate. The doctor then applied a cast that covered most of Hill's leg.
After five days in the hospital, Hill returned to the institution, walking on crutches. He was not able to return to his job in the prison tailor shop for three weeks. Approximately six weeks after the operation, Hill's cast was removed. He continued to walk with crutches for a period of one month after that. Hill continued to complain of pain in the ankle for over a year, and the institution provided him with medication for pain. He was admitted to Wilkes-Barre Hospital in September of 1985 for surgical removal of the metal hardware.
A panel of arbitrators heard this case on October 6, 1986. The arbitrators awarded Hill damages in the amount of $17,341.74. The bureau appealed from that decision to the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County. The case was tried before a jury on July 20 and 21, 1987. The jury found the defendant bureau to be 100% negligent. They awarded Hill damages in the amount of his medical expenses plus an additional $1800.
Hill filed a motion for a new trial on damages and a motion for additur. By order of December 30, 1987, the trial judge denied the motion for a new trial, and Hill has appealed from that order.
One principle relating to review of a small damages award is that compromise verdicts are expected and allowed. Elza v. Chovan, 396 Pa. 112, 115, 152 A.2d 238, 240 (1959). A compromise verdict is one where "the jury, in doubt as to defendant's negligence or plaintiff's freedom from contributory negligence, brings in a verdict for the plaintiff but in a smaller amount than it would have if these questions had been free from doubt." Phelps v. Britton, Inc., 412 Pa. 55, 60 n. 3, 192 A.2d 689, 692 n. 3 (1963). Logically, when this issue is raised, a reviewing court should consider it first, because if the small award probably was the result of a permissible compromise, then the award was not intended to be "adequate" in the sense of being reasonably related to the damages proved.1
Where, as here, a defendant resisting a motion for a new trial on the grounds of inadequacy argues that the small award may have resulted from compromise on the issue of liability, then the reviewing court must evaluate the likelihood of such a compromise. Courts routinely have done so. See, e.g., Hose v. Hake, 412 Pa. 10, 192 A.2d 339 (1963); McIntyre v. Clark, 314 Pa.Superior Ct. 552, 461 A.2d 295 (1983); Bortner v. Gladfelter, 302 Pa.Superior Ct. 492, 448 A.2d 1386 (1982); Hevener v. Reilly, 266 Pa.Superior Ct. 386, 404 A.2d 1343 (1979).
Here, the likelihood of compromise is small. First, the bureau presented no evidence whatsoever tending to show any contributory negligence on Hill's part. Second, although the bureau argues that it "hotly" contested the issue of liability, the theory on which its defense was based was that unless the jury believed that a civilian or prisoner employee of the institution had removed the cover from the goal post hole, then the prison could not be charged with actual or constructive notice of the hazardous condition. However, there is a high degree of likelihood that the jury concluded that, regardless of who removed the cover, the prison had at least constructive notice of the dangerous state of the goal post hole, which was an artificial condition that the prison itself had installed in a piece of real estate that should be highly controlled, a prison yard.
The Superior Court summarized the general principles involved in appellate review of a trial court's decision to grant or to deny a new trial on the grounds of inadequacy of damages in Bortner v. Gladfelter, 302 Pa.Superior Ct. 492, 496-97, 448 A.2d 1386, 1388-89 (1982):
Whether to grant a new trial because of inadequacy of the verdict is peculiarly within the competence of the trial court, and its discretion is considerable. Its action, therefore, will not be disturbed on appeal except where there has been a clear abuse of discretion. Wilson v. Nelson, 437 Pa. 254, 256, 258 A.2d 657, 658-659 (1969); Dougherty v. Sadsbury Township, 299 Pa.Super. 357, 360, 445 A.2d 793, 795 (1982); Mueller v. Brandon, 282 Pa.Super. 37, 41, 422 A.2d 664, 666 (1980); Palmer v. Brest, 254 Pa.Super. 532, 536, 386 A.2d 77, 79 (1978). However, the appellate courts do not abdicate their power of review and will reverse where a clear abuse of discretion appears. Hose v. Hake, 412 Pa. 10, 14, 192 A.2d 339, 341 (1963); Dougherty v. Sadsbury, supra.
" " ' Rutter v. Morris, 212 Pa.Super. 466, 469-470, 243 A.2d 140, 142 (1968).
This court expressed approval for the guidelines prescribed in Bortner as a means of evaluating the trial court's exercise of discretion in Riddle v. Anderson, 85 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 271, 274-75, 481 A.2d 382, 384 (1984).
The above guidelines, although readily quoted, do not purport to be precise. The line between an award that is smaller than what the reviewing court would have granted, but still permissible, and an award that is so small that it amounts to a failure of justice to the plaintiff is not sharp.
In Mueller v. Brandon, 282 Pa.Superior Ct. 37, 422 A.2d 664 (1980), a woman injured in an automobile collision appealed from the trial court's denial of her motion for a new trial. In the accident she suffered a broken left ankle, a concussion and cut on her forehead, and a broken nose. The sole issue in dispute before the jury was the amount of damages for pain and suffering, and that portion of the jury's award came to $663.
The Superior Court quoted the standard for determining inadequacy from 15 Am.Jur., Damages, that would later appear in Bortner. The court then made the following cogent observation:
Since under our system of jurisprudence our courts in most cases have no way of knowing how or why a jury reached their verdict in a given case, the presence of passion, prejudice, partiality or corruption on the part of the jury, or whether they disregarded instructions, acted under misapprehension or mistake can only be a matter of surmise by a reviewing court. The test in the last analysis must simply be whether the award when scrutinized under the law and indisputable facts of the case at hand is so inadequate that it should not be permitted to stand....
In order to determine if the verdict is inadequate we must review the entire record to determine whether an injustice has...
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