Kappovich v. Le Winter

• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division
• Writing for the Court: JAYNE
• Citation: Kappovich v. Le Winter, 129 A.2d 299, 43 N.J.Super. 528 (N.J. Super. App. Div. 1957)
• Decision Date: 13 February 1957
• Docket Number: No. A--482,A--482
• Parties: John KAPPOVICH and Mary Kappovich, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joseph LE WINTER, Defendant-Respondent. . Appellate Division

Page 528

43 N.J.Super. 528

129 A.2d 299

John KAPPOVICH and Mary Kappovich, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joseph LE WINTER, Defendant-Respondent.

No. A--482.

Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division.

Argued Jan. 28, 1957.

Decided Feb. 13, 1957.

Raymond Chasan, Jersey City, argued the cause for appellants (DeFazio, Davidson & DeFazio, Hoboken, attorneys).

Maurice C. Brigadier, Jersey City, argued the cause for respondent (Ezra L. Nolan, Jersey City, attorney).

Before Judges CLAPP, JAYNE and FRANCIS.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

JAYNE, J.A.D.

Many pages could be needlessly written graphically descriptive of the scene and anecdotic of the circumstances amid which this mishap occurred in consequence of which several alleged causes of action for damages were instituted. The accident was no more unique than the common vehicular collision between two vehicles at a highway or street intersection in which the personal injuries to the several occupants of the cars and property damages were occasioned. This collision occurred at about 10:15 A.M. at the intersection of State Highway Route No. 1 and Baldwin Avenue in the City of Jersey City.

That which now remains of the interfused causes of litigation between the parties originally implicated is brought to us by the present appeal. The owners and drivers respectively of the two vehicles were Samuel Kappovich and Joseph LeWinter. John and Mary Kappovich were passengers in the vehicle operated by their son Samuel. The jury rendered a verdict against Joseph LeWinter in favor of John and Mary Kappovich, awarding John the sum of $1,200 and Mary the sum of $3,500 damages. An application on behalf of the plaintiffs for a new trial confined to a reconsideration of the damages was denied by the trial judge. We are presently concerned only with the appeal of John and Mary Kappovich in which they complain that the awards of damages respectively made to them by the jury were conspicuously inadequate. No other party appeals and a former cross-appeal has been abandoned.

Our review of the transcript of the pertinent evidence persuades us that there was sufficient proof to support the jury's factual finding of the alleged negligence of the defendant LeWinter, perhaps conceived to have been concurrent and cooperative with that of Samuel Kappovich against whom the claims of these plaintiffs had been compromised. We are therefore in accord with the view of the trial judge that in its relation to the issue of the defendant's alleged liability, the verdict of the jury was in that particular unexceptionable.

We proceed to contrast the awards of compensatory damages with the evidence relative to the injuries and losses, present and prospective, suffered respectively by the plaintiffs.

It is evident that Mrs. Kappovich received serious bodily injury in the mishap. In addition to a concussion of the brain, fractures of the third and fourth metacarpal bones of the left hand, and a laceration above her eye, she sustained a fracture of the acetabulum of such severity that the ball at the head of the femur protruded through the shattered socket into the pelvis. This displacement continues and is said to be beyond surgical adjustment. The sequela is a one-inch shortening of the left limb, a limitation of its use, a lameness requiring the use of crutches of cane, consequent tilting of posture and the development of a painful traumatic arthritic degeneration, all of which incapacitating characteristics of the pelvic injury have and will permanently disable her.

The plaintiff John Kappovich suffered injury to the tendon sheaths of the second and third fingers of his right hand and contusions and abrasions of his right leg. It was claimed that the injury to the hand continues to cause him pain in the distal interphalangeal joints of the fingers in the pursuit of manual work.

However, we notice that his expenditures for the medical treatment of himself, his loss of wages, plus the costs of the treatment and hospitalization of his wife, for which he sued, concededly amounted in the aggregate to $1,598.69. What happened to his claim for the past and future loss of services of his incapacitated housewife? Obviously his Per quod recovery is...