Niemeyer v. Chicago, B. & Q. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 05 June 1909
• Citation: 121 N.W. 521,143 Iowa 129
• Parties: JOSEPHINE NIEMEYER, Appellee, v. THE CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & QUINCY RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

121 N.W. 521

143 Iowa 129

JOSEPHINE NIEMEYER, Appellee, v. THE CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & QUINCY RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

June 5, 1909

Appeal from Scott District Court.--HON. J. W. BOLLINGER, Judge.

ACTION to recover damages for personal injury. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Lane & Waterman, for appellant.

Ely & Bush, for appellee.

OPINION

WEAVER, J.

The plaintiff, a married woman, while a passenger on one of defendant's trains was injured in a collision and brought this action at law to recover damages. There was a verdict and judgment in her favor for the sum of $ 2,300. As the appellant does not contest the question of its liability to make compensation to plaintiff for the pain and suffering caused by the injury, and assigns error only upon the ruling of the trial court allowing her to recover for loss or impairment of earning capacity, we shall consume no time in referring to the circumstances of the accident or discussing questions of negligence or contributory negligence.

The evidence tended to show that the plaintiff was a resident of Jamestown, N. D. She had been recently married, and, after a wedding trip to the South, was returning with her husband to their home at Jamestown, when the accident occurred. Prior to her marriage she taught music, and at that date had a class of about thirty pupils, from each of whom she received $ 1 per lesson. Before leaving upon her wedding trip, she promised her pupils to resume charge of their music lessons on her return, and it was her intention, approved or agreed to by her husband, to continue in said business; but she had in fact given no lessons and earned no independent income between the date of her marriage and her injury. On this showing the appellant asked the court to instruct the jury that, plaintiff having failed to prove that she had been engaged in any independent business since her marriage, she could not recover in her own right for loss of earnings or earning capacity, and that her recovery, if any must be confined to compensation for pain and suffering caused by the injury received by her in the collision. This request was refused, and the court charged the jury that if appellee had, prior to her marriage and wedding journey engaged in music teaching as an independent calling on her own account and her marriage and trip were in fact only a temporary interruption of her said business, and she was intending to resume the work of her said calling on returning to her home, but was prevented from so doing by her injury in the collision upon appellant's road, then she would be entitled to compensation not only for pain and suffering, but also for loss, if any, of earnings and for impairment of earning capacity. The same question was raised upon the trial by objections to testimony offered. The record as to these objections and rulings is confused, but we think the facts as we have stated them are fairly shown, or at least that the testimony left in the case by the rulings of the trial court was sufficient to support such findings.

It is to be admitted that our statute, which apparently provides for the removal of common-law disabilities of coverture so far as they hamper or...