Lindsey Wagon Co. v. Nix

• Decision Date: 22 February 1915
• Docket Number: 16517
• Citation: 108 Miss. 814,67 So. 459
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: LINDSEY WAGON CO. v. NIX

67 So. 459

108 Miss. 814

LINDSEY WAGON CO. v. NIX

No. 16517

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 22, 1915

APPEAL from the circuit court of Jones county. HON. P. B. JOHNSON Judge.

Suit by Benton Nix, a minor, by his next friend, E. C. Nix, against the Lindsey Wagon Company. From a judgment for plaintiff defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

Flowers Brown & Davis and Deavours & Sharbrough, for appellant.

Neville & Stone and Whitfield & Whitfield, for appellee.

OPINION

REED, J.

Benton Nix, a youth some nineteen years of age, an employee of the Lindsey Wagon Company, while engaged in the operation of an edger saw in the company's factory, had his left arm caught in the saw and badly cut and mangled, so that it became necessary for the arm to be amputated between the wrist and the elbow. The jury awarded him damages in the sum of six thousand dollars.

The evidence is sufficient to sustain the jury's verdict, and we therefore find no ground for reversal in the following assignments of error made by appellant: (1) Because the court overruled appellant's motion made upon the conclusion of the testimony for the plaintiff, to exclude the testimony and direct a verdict in its favor; (2) because the court refused to grant a peremptory instruction for the defendant after all of the evidence had been introduced.

We see no force in the complaint by appellant that the court committed error in granting, modifying, and refusing certain instructions.

We will make reference only to the argument of appellant's counsel that the court erred in granting the fifth instruction for the plaintiff. That instruction reads as follows:

"The court instructs the jury for the plaintiff, Nix, that if they find for the plaintiff they should find a verdict for such an amount as in their judgment the evidence in the case warrants; and in fixing the amount the jury should take into consideration the physical pain and mental anguish which plaintiff suffered as a result of his injury, if they believe from the evidence he suffered such pain and anguish."

The objection by appellant seems to be directed specially to that part of the instruction which tells the jury that "they should find a verdict in such amount as in their judgment the evidence in the case warrants." It is claimed by counsel that by this instruction no guide is given the jury, and that any amount the jury, according to their individual standards, might find warranted by the evidence, could be awarded; that they were directed to award full compensation to the plaintiff.

We see no error in this instruction. It simply tells the jury that they can award damages in such amount as the evidence warrants--this means the whole evidence that for the plaintiff and that for the defendant; in deciding on the amount of their verdict they must consider all of the proof and all that may be included therein in the way of claims of liability...