Thomas v. United States
| Decision Date | 27 January 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 14228.,14228. |
| Citation | 327 F.2d 379 |
| Parties | Catherine THOMAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Edward J. Kelly and John T. Coburn, Chicago, Ill., Coburn, Kelly & Roan, Chicago, Ill., of counsel, for appellant.
Frank E. McDonald, U. S. Atty., Barry J. Freeman, John Peter Lulinski, John Powers Crowley, Asst. U. S. Attys., Chicago, Ill., of counsel, for appellee.
Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and KILEY and SWYGERT, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff appeals from a judgment, in her favor, of $11,321.20 in a personal injury action under the Federal Tort Claims Act.1 The ground of appeal is the inadequacy of the award for pain and suffering.2
The unique issue presented is: Whether the district court erred in allowing only nominal damages for the element of pain and suffering on the ground that plaintiff, because of her mental illness aroused by the injury, received a "certain gratification."3 We think the district court erred.
The government's mail truck was negligently driven into the automobile in which plaintiff was riding. The negligence caused plaintiff's "cerebral concussion, contusion to the soft parts of the neck, and post concussion shock."
Three years before the occurrence plaintiff was hospitalized and treated six months for a "psycho neurotic reaction, depressive reaction." She was discharged, "Treatment completed, not mentally ill." After her discharge from the hospital she worked steadily to support herself and her children. She was given increased responsibilities by her employers and periodic pay raises, and during this period of employment she sought medical attention only on two occasions, once for a minor ear infection, and once for a wrenched ankle.
The injuries inflicted by the government were a substantial factor in arousing plaintiff's dormant "psycho neurotic * * * depressive reaction." She suffered pain for more than two years and wore a neck brace for more than six months. She was hospitalized three times following the accident and was unable to return to work for two years.
There is no evidence that plaintiff received "gratification" from the pain and suffering.4 The finding to that effect is clearly erroneous. The evidence was that she was "ripe" for the reaction she experienced as a result of these injuries; that the injuries "fed" her problems and were the "precipitating cause" for the way she handled her anxieties "through summitization or putting the anxiety — attaching it to organ systems or the neuromuscular system."
We take this evidence to mean that the superimposition of physical injuries upon her psychic problem increased her anxieties to such an extent that she could no longer keep them under control, and as a result she underwent a more extreme reaction than would normally follow. Her marked hypochondriasis or inclination to refer anxieties to physical sources does not warrant the inference that she received "enjoyment" or "gratification" from the pain caused by her injuries.
The effect of the finding that plaintiff's "gratification" should be balanced against the pain and suffering to provide only nominal damages is to apply a rule that where one inflicts an actionable injury and arouses the victim's dormant mental illness, as a result of which the victim's real pain and suffering somehow feeds the victim's psychic problem, a balance should be struck between the real pain and suffering and the "gratification" to the victim's psyche to arrive at a net quantity of pain.
We think the secondary effect of plaintiff's injuries did not lessen the obligation of the court to allow, and the government to pay, reasonable damages for plaintiff's pain and suffering. Ill. Jury Pattern Instructions 30.03, Watkins v. Town of Cicero, 312 Ill.App. 380, 37 N. E.2d 785 (1941). The secondary effect did not diminish the damage to plaintiff. If that effect is plaintiff's "summitization" of the pain and suffering it is of no concern to the tort-feasor.
The government argues in support of the court's ruling that there are some elements of pain, real enough to the victim, which are the natural and probable consequences of defendant's negligence, but which are nevertheless not compensable in law because of the plaintiff's peculiar psychological makeup. On the contrary, the tort-feasor takes the victim as he finds him.5 Until the sciences of law, psychiatry and psychology co-develop to a stage at which there is a fuller understanding of human pain and suffering,6 we think it unwise to formulate a rule of damages which reduces the compensation for an injured plaintiff to a "net," after crediting the tort-feasor with a secondary effect of the injury due plaintiff's psychic weakness, aroused by the injury.
The court...
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