Mainelli v. Haberstroh

• Decision Date: 04 September 1964
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 8197.
• Citation: 237 F. Supp. 190
• Parties: Mamie J. MAINELLI and Nicholas Mainelli, Plaintiffs, v. Alfred HABERSTROH and Marie Haberstroh, Individually a/d/b/a Hill Top Rest, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

237 F. Supp. 190

Mamie J. MAINELLI and Nicholas Mainelli, Plaintiffs, v. Alfred HABERSTROH and Marie Haberstroh, Individually a/d/b/a Hill Top Rest, Defendants.

Civ. No. 8197.

United States District Court M. D. Pennsylvania.

September 4, 1964.

Louis A. Fine, Honesdale, Pa., for plaintiffs.

Warren, Hill, Henkelman & McMenamin, Scranton, Pa., for defendants.

NEALON, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, Mamie J. Mainelli and Nicholas Mainelli, her husband, brought suit against defendants, Alfred Haberstroh and Marie Haberstroh, d/b/a Hill Top Rest, to recover damages for injuries sustained by Mamie J. Mainelli when she fell from a step while a paying guest at defendants' resort boarding house. At the trial, plaintiffs' evidence revealed that while Mamie J. Mainelli was departing from the dining room, she stepped out the front door onto a step consisting of a single slab of natural stone, the center of which was hollowed out into a depression estimated at from ½" to 2" in depth. The depression was partially covered by a rubber mat, according to plaintiffs, and when Mrs. Mainelli's foot came in contact with the mat it gave way into the depression, thereby causing her to fall. As a result of the fall, Mrs. Mainelli sustained a fracture of the distal end of the right fibula at the ankle and was hospitalized for three days at Wayne Memorial Hospital. Plaintiffs claimed out-of-pocket expenses of $1,590.89, which represented medical expenses, $405.89; domestic help, $625.00, and loss of wages, $560.00. The jury awarded Mr. Mainelli the full amount of out-of-pocket expenses and awarded Mrs. Mainelli $200.00 for pain and suffering. Plaintiffs filed a motion for a new trial solely on the issue of damages under authority of Rule 59(a), contending that the verdict in Mrs. Mainelli's favor in the amount of $200.00 for pain and suffering was grossly inadequate.

During the jury's deliberations a note was sent out to the Court containing the following inquiry: "If we give to Mr. Mainelli his expenses, do we have to find for Mrs. Mainelli also." The jury was summoned into open Court and instructed by the Trial Judge that, in order for Mr. Mainelli to recover his expenses, the jury would first have to find defendants negligent, and if they so concluded that defendants were negligent, then Mrs. Mainelli would be entitled to recover for her pain and suffering. The jury subsequently returned the verdict hereinabove mentioned. Consequently, the sole issue to be decided under plaintiffs' motion is whether the award to plaintiff, Mrs. Mainelli, for pain and suffering was so grossly inadequate as to entitle her to a new trial. It is defendant's position that (a) the determination of damages is solely a question for the jury; (b) the verdict was not so inadequate as to shock the conscience of the Court, and (c) the disputed liability had an effect upon the amount of the award, i. e., a compromise verdict. Plaintiffs contend that the award to Mrs. Mainelli was grossly inadequate under any view of the medical evidence presented at trial and further that no compromise based upon contested or uncertain liability can be read into the jury's findings, inasmuch as the verdict for Mr. Mainelli was for the full amount of the special damages claimed by him.

Under Rule 59(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S. C.A., a new trial may be granted "* * for any of the reasons for which new trials have heretofore been granted in actions at law in the courts of the United States * * *." However, the trial judge should not interfere with the time-honored right of the jury, in the exercise of its collective judgment, to make a just determination of a defendant's liability and the damages sustained by a plaintiff for to do so "* * * effects a denigration of the jury system and to the extent that new trials are granted the judge takes over, if he does not usurp, the prime function of the jury as the trier of the facts." Lind v. Schenley Industries, Inc., 278 F.2d 79 (3d Cir. 1960), certiorari denied 364 U.S. 835, 81 S.Ct. 58, 5 L.Ed.2d 60. Nevertheless, it is for the trial judge "* * * to see that right and justice are done in the case before him, setting aside the verdict and granting a new trial if in the exercise of a sound discretion he thinks such action necessary to prevent an unjust result." Magee v. General Motors Corp., 213 F.2d 899 (3d Cir. 1954). An unjust result would flow from an award that was so grossly inadequate or so grossly excessive as "to shock the conscience of the court"¹, or indicating "mere caprice or mistake"², or "that the jury in rendering the verdict clearly abused its peculiar fact-finding discretion or was clearly influenced by partiality, corruption, passion, prejudice or some misconception of the law or material evidence."³

In the present case, the jury awarded the full amount of out-of-pocket expenses claimed by plaintiff husband and, in addition, awarded plaintiff wife $200.00 for her pain and suffering. Is this award for pain and suffering so grossly inadequate as to shock the conscience of the Court and thereby indicate that the jury clearly abused its fact-finding discretion?⁴ If the jury fails to make any award for pain and suffering, then a trial judge may justifiably order a new trial. Davison v. Monessen Southwestern Railway Co., 144 F.Supp. 599 (W.D.Pa.1956). But such is not the case here. It must be remembered that pain and suffering is a rather elusive concept which is not susceptible of precise monetary formulation. Mitchell v. Evelyn C. Brown, Inc., 310 F.2d 420 (1st Cir. 1962); Hanson v. Reiss Steamship Company, 184 F.Supp. 545 (D.C.Del.1960); Petition of Gulf Oil Corporation, 172 F.Supp. 911 (S.D. N.Y.1959). "In determining the amount of an award for pain and suffering a juror or judge should necessarily be guided by some reasonable and practical considerations. It should not be a blind guess or the pulling of a figure out of the air. At the same time there is no exact or precise measuring stick. Exact compensation is impossible in the abstract but the juror or judge should endeavor to make a reasonable or same estimate. The practical considerations influencing a particular juror or judge or the reasoning used by him may very well differ with the method used by another juror or judge, yet each of such different methods or modes of reasoning may be a reasonable method of reaching the desired result." Imperial Oil, Limited v. Drlik, 234 F.2d 4 (6th Cir. 1956). Moreover, the existence and extent of damages being peculiarly a question of fact, great deference is due the determination of the fact-finder. Mitchell v. Evelyn C. Brown, Inc. (supra). "The efficacy of the jury system is that it recognizes the grays which the law too frequently assigns to the limited categories of black and white. Jurors have a tendency to view the evidence as a whole and to apply to it their accumulated experience and combined sense of justice to arrive at a result they believe to be fair to...