Jacksonville Electric Co. v. Batchis

• Decision Date: 29 October 1907
• Citation: 44 So. 933,54 Fla. 192
• Parties: JACKSONVILLE ELECTRIC CO. v. BATCHIS.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

44 So. 933

54 Fla. 192

JACKSONVILLE ELECTRIC CO. v. BATCHIS.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

October 29, 1907

Error to Circuit Court, Duval County; Rhydon M. Call, Judge.

Action by Rose Batchis against the Jacksonville Electric Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Reversed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

Such damages as the law holds to be the direct, natural, and necessary result of the injury complained of may be recovered under a general allegation of damage, for the reason that the defendant is presumed to know the damages that directly and necessarily result from the negligence, and consequently will not be taken by surprise when evidence of such damage is admitted.

Special damages are such as are not the necessary, but the direct natural, and proximate, result of the negligence complained of, and the defendant is not presumed to know of them. Therefore such special damages should be specifically alleged, unless they are fairly included in other damages alleged, or unless the law infers them from the facts stated.

In an action for damages for personal injuries, where the declaration alleges special damages in specified amounts incurred in medical attention, board for the plaintiff and nurse, medicine and attendance, rent for plaintiff's place of business, servant hire at plaintiff's place of business, and injuries sustained, and pain and suffering endured, making a given total amount claimed as damages, and no general damages are alleged, amounts paid for rent as alleged may be proven and recovered, but damages for loss to plaintiff of earnings in her occupation cannot be recovered as such loss is not fairly included in any damages stated and cannot be inferred from other allegations. Therefore evidence of such loss of earnings should not be admitted if properly objected to.

In an action for damages for personal injuries, the condition of plaintiff's health more than a year before the injury complained of is not in general material where there is evidence as to the condition of the plaintiff's health a short time before the injury.

A declaration which alleges that a passenger, on a street car that has stopped, who was near the door leaving the car, when the car without signal or notice started again, and was by the carelessness and negligence of the motorman in operating stopped suddenly with a jerk, which threw the passenger against a seat injuring her, states a cause of action; and where the proofs tend to sustain the allegations, a charge that the plaintiff is entitled to recover if the jury finds such to be the facts is not erroneous.

In an action for damages, where there is evidence that the plaintiff was in her normal health at the time of the injury, it is not error to charge that, if it be found from the evidence that the plaintiff on the day she injured was in a normal condition of health and attending to her business, the jury should not consider any previous illness or disease under which she may have labored in the past, and from which she had recovered at the time of the injury, in determining the compensation to which she might be entitled if she is entitled to damages. The safer rule is not to confine the charge to the plaintiff's normal condition.

In an action for damages, where there was testimony that the plaintiff suffered from nervousness 60 or 90 days before the injury complained of, that she had not then completely recovered from it, and that her nervous condition after the injury was not entirely the result of the injury, the court may, if requested, instruct the jury that the defendant is not liable for nervous troubles of the plaintiff existing at the time of the injury complained of and not caused by the defendant.

Instructions should be confined to the issues made by the pleadings, even though evidence be admitted that is not within such issues.

COUNSEL

John E. Hartridge & Son, for plaintiff in error.

Alex. St. Clair-Abrams, for defendant in error.

OPINION

WHITFIELD J.

On January 11, 1906, the defendant in error filed in the circuit court for Duval county a declaration alleging that on December 2, 1905, the Jacksonville Electric Company was operating a certain street car in Jacksonville, and on that day the plaintiff was a passenger on said car; that plaintiff gave notice to the conductor to stop the car, which the conductor did, and, after said car had stopped, plaintiff arose from her seat and proceeded to the door to leave the car, and, when plaintiff got near the door, the car, without signal or notice, started again, and, on the conductor again signaling to stop, the car was by the carelessness and negligence of the motorman in operating stopped suddenly with a jerk, and by reason of said jerk the plaintiff was thrown over the back of one of the seats, inflicting upon her several internal injuries, which caused her, and still causes her, great pain and suffering, to the special damage of the plaintiff in the sum of $150 for medical attendance, $100 for board for herself and nurse, $25 for medicines and attendance, $50 for rent of her place of business, which she was compelled to keep closed during her confinement in her room for two weeks, $20 for wages to servant employed by her at her place of business, and in the further sum of $4,655 for injuries sustained by her and the pain and suffering she had endured, and plaintiff claims $5,000 damages. There was a plea of not guilty. The plaintiff recovered judgment for $1,000. A motion for new trial was overruled. The defendant excepted, and took writ of error.

The declaration alleges several internal injuries to the plaintiff which caused her great pain and...