Southern Ry. Co. v. Hayes

• Decision Date: 16 November 1916
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 946
• Citation: 198 Ala. 601,73 So. 945
• Parties: SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. HAYES et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

73 So. 945

198 Ala. 601

SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. HAYES et al.

8 Div. 946

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 16, 1916

Rehearing Denied Jan. 18, 1917

Appeal from Circuit Court, Morgan County; D.W. Speake, Judge.

Action by Fannie Hayes and others against the Southern Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Transferred from the Court of Appeals under Act April 18 1911, p. 450, § 6. Affirmed.

Wert &amp Lynne, of Decatur, for appellant.

O. Kyle and E.W. Godbey, both of Decatur, for appellees.

MAYFIELD J.

Most of the questions of law raised on this appeal and which are material were decided on the former appeal, a report of which may be found in 183 Ala. 465, 62 So. 874. We are not shown any sufficient reason for departing from the holdings on the other appeal, that punitive damages are recoverable in this class of actions, and that under the pleadings and proof the question was one for the jury and not for the court; hence we hold that there was no error in refusing the various instructions requested by defendant, which sought to preclude a recovery of such damages, nor in any of the rulings of the court as to such damages.

The appellant insists that the trial court erred in refusing certain charges requested by it, which were practically copied from the opinion of this court on the former appeal. Conceding that the charges were copied literally from the opinion, it does not necessarily follow that it was error to refuse them on another trial, even though the evidence were the same, and the opinion so copied from not erroneous. As to charges so copied, this court has repeatedly said that judges, in writing opinions, and authors, in writing legal text-books, often use language which would not be proper in a written requested charge or instruction to the jury. Such charges may be misleading or argumentative, or may have the effect to give undue prominence to certain phases or parts of the evidence; and such would have been the effect, in this case, to have given the defendant's requested charges which were practically copied from parts of the opinion on the former appeal.

The trial court, at the request of plaintiffs, gave to the jury several instructions which would have been erroneous, but for the fact that there was no dispute that the agents and servants of defendant had entered upon, and graded down, the strip of land in question; there being no dispute in this particular, the charges were not erroneous in failing to hypothesize the facts necessary to show an entry upon, and damages to, the property, if it was found to be the property of plaintiffs and that the defendant had no right to enter thereon for the purpose of grading the land in question, and there was no contention that defendant had or claimed any right other than that of owner. That is, there was no claim that the entry was not wrongful if the land in question was that of plaintiffs', and not that of defendant's. Some of these charges were as follows:

"2. If you find that Fannie Hayes and the other plaintiffs had held the lot since 1888, claiming the land inside the fence on said lot as theirs, and you find that said holding by plaintiffs was open, visible, continuous, exclusive, and adverse to everybody else, and that said holding under said claim had been for ten years, then, if this be true, your verdict should be for the plaintiffs."

"4. If you find that Fannie Hayes and the other plaintiffs were in possession of this lot, claiming all the land inside the fence, under adverse possession, under the definition of 'adverse possession' as I gave it to you in my oral charge, then, if this be true, your verdict should be for the plaintiffs."

"5. The court charges the jury that if the property that was entered belonged to plaintiffs, they are entitled to recover actual damages, if the jury believe the evidence, and they are entitled to recover interest on said actual damages, at 8 per cent. per annum, from September 5, 1906, until this date, but not more, in all, than $1,990."

These charges hypothesized the only disputed questions of fact, and if these questions were found as stated by the jury, then of course the plaintiffs were entitled to recover, and to recover all the damages stated in the charges. Those which authorized the recovery of punitive damages were not erroneous in this respect, as held on the former appeal, and as we have said above in this opinion. Such damages, both as to the right of recovery and the amount, are usually questions resting in the discretion of the jury under proper instructions by the court. As to actual damages that is, the amount thereof--the jury, of course, have no discretion, but must be controlled exclusively by the evidence. We find no error in this respect.

As to actual damages, it is of course error for the court to instruct the jury that the amount thereof is left to, or rests in, their discretion otherwise than may be shown by the evidence.

There are some kinds of actual damages, such as physical pain, and mental anguish, which are not susceptible of any exact standard of measurement, either by proof or by the law. As to such, of course, the jury or the trier of facts must fix the amount, but in so doing they must be controlled by the evidence before them; they cannot arbitrarily fix the amount otherwise than authorized by the evidence. Juries have no right to award actual damages...