Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Wallace

• Citation: 17 S.W. 882,91 Tenn. 35
• Parties: Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Wallace.
• Decision Date: 12 December 1891
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

17 S.W. 882

91 Tenn. 35

Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Wallace.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

December 12, 1891

Appeal from circuit court, Sumner county; H. C. Carter, Judge.

Action by W. L. Wallace against the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company for personal injuries. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

Snodgrass J.

The defendant in error, while in the service of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company as brakeman, sustained severe personal injury, resulting in the loss of a leg, which he alleged was occasioned by the negligence of the company. He sued for $15,000 damages and recovered judgment for $9,940. The company appealed, and assigned numerous errors. It is not deemed material to notice but one of them, as the others are not well taken, and involve nothing new, so as to make their consideration in a written opinion necessary. The one material to be considered relates to the question of interest. The court told the jury it could assess plaintiff's damages with or without interest, as the jury should see proper, in connection with instructions as to the measure of damages not otherwise complained of. The verdict assessed the damages at $7,000 with 7 years' interest $2,940, aggegating $9,940. It is objected in the assignment of errors that the charge on this question, and verdict, with judgment thereon, are erroneous. This involves a consideration of the question, what is the true measure of damages for such personal injury? The rule for determining damages for injuries not resulting in death, (where the statute fixes the measure,) and not calling for exemplary punishment, deducible from the decisions of this court since its organization in this state, is that of compensation for mental suffering and physical pain, loss of time, and expenses incident to the injury, and, if it be permanent, the loss resulting from complete or partial disability in health mind, or person thereby occasioned. And this is the rule most consonant to reason adopted in other states. 3 Sedg. Dam (8th Ed.) § 481 et seq.; 5 Amer. & Eng. Enc.

Law pp. 40-44, and notes; Railroad Co. v. Read, 87 Amer Dec. 260. As this sum in gross includes all the compensation which is requisite to cover pain, suffering, and disability to date of judgment, and prospectively beyond, it is intended to be and is the full measure of recovery, and cannot be supplemented by the new element of damages for the detention of this sum from the date of the injury. The measure of damages being thus fixed, it is expected that in determining it juries and courts will make the sum given in gross a fair and just compensation, and one in full of amount proper to be given when rendered, whether soon or late after the injury; as, if given soon, it looks to continuing suffering and disability, just as, when given late, it includes that of the past. It is obvious that damages could not be given for pain and suffering and disability experienced on the very day of trial, and then interest added for years before. These are items considered to make up the aggregate then due, and the gross sum then for the first time judicially ascertained. The error of the court below was in the assumption that a like measure of damages is applied in this class of cases as in that of injury to property effecting its destruction or conversion or other unlawful or fraudulent misappropriation, or detention of property or money, in which the rule applied by the circuit judge is held to be a proper one; not on the theory, even in this class of cases, that interest as such is due, but that the plaintiff is entitled to the fixed sum of money or definite money value of property converted or destroyed, and the jury may give as damages an amount equal to interest on the value of the property. But such rule applies alone to such cases, and not to that of personal injury, which does not cease when inflicted, and is not susceptible of definite and accurate computation. It never creates a debt, nor becomes one, until it is judicially ascertained and determined. Only from that time can it draw interest; and interest or damages cannot at any preceding time be added to it without changing and superadding a new element, never given in this state or any other in a similar case, so far as our investigation has discovered. The counsel of plaintiff, who cite many authorities supposed to be in support of the ruling below, were doubtless misled by the generality of terms used in some of them. Under the head of ""Interest," after stating that "it was generally allowed by law on two grounds, namely, on contract, express or implied, or by way of damages either for default in payment of a debt or for a use or benefit derived from the money of another," it is stated in 11 Amer. & Eng. Enc. Law that, "where it is imposed to punish tortious, negligent, or fraudulent conduct, it is a question within the discretion of the jury." Page 380. For this proposition various authorities are cited, including Mr. Sedgwick on Damages, p. 374, (the reference being to paging of the fifth or earlier edition.) This author uses similar general terms, but neither was speaking of cases of personal injury, but of the class of cases to which we have referred, as fully appears from Mr. Sedgwick's further discussion of this general head, on pages 385, 386, and as most clearly appears from a reference to the authorities cited by both, which relate to cases of trover and trespass and to property controversies only. In neither of these books is the proposition now thought to be sustained by them advanced,-that the measure of damages for a personal injury includes damages for detention of the supposed amount due. The generality of statement indulged in that...