Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Tocci

• Decision Date: 17 May 1966
• Docket Number: CA-CIV
• Citation: 414 P.2d 179,3 Ariz.App. 330
• Parties: TUCSON RAPID TRANSIT CO., Inc., and Arizona corporation, Appellant, v. Vincent R. TOCCI and Anne M. Tocci, husband and wife, Appellees. No 2140.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

Page 179

414 P.2d 179

3 Ariz.App. 330

TUCSON RAPID TRANSIT CO., Inc., and Arizona corporation, Appellant, v. Vincent R. TOCCI and Anne M. Tocci, husband and wife, Appellees.

No 2 CA-CIV 140.

Court of Appeals of Arizona.

May 17, 1966.

Rehearing Denied June 28, 1966.

Holesapple, Conner, Jones, McFall & Johnson, by G. Marshall Jones, Tucson, for appellant.

Hirsch, Van Slyke, Richter & Ollason, by Clague A. Van Slyke, Tucson, for appellees.

MOLLOY, Judge.

This is an appeal from a jury verdict awarding the appellees, plaintiffs below, $10,000 for injuries resulting from a collision between a transit bus belonging to the appellant, Tucson Rapid Transit Company, and an automobile being driven by the plaintiff, Anne Tocci.

On July 17, 1962, Mrs. Tocci was stopped in a lane of traffic behind other cars stopped for a red light at a street intersection in the City of Tucson, Arizona. The defendant's bus, approaching the intersection in the same direction as Mrs. Tocci's car, collided with the rear-end of the Tocci car. Mrs. Tocci was tossed about in the collision and struck her head on the sun visor of her car. Following the collision, Mrs. Tocci was examined at the military hospital at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. No broken bones or other physical injury needing medical attention were found. She was given a sedative and told to go home to rest.

After the accident, Mrs. Tocci became emotionally depressed. On August 16, 1962 she reported at the Base Hospital complaining of a severe depression. She was hospitalized over a weekend but upon being released, on August 18, 1962, Mrs. Tocci consumed a large dose of phenobarbital capsules in an attempt to take her life. Hospitalization, and considerable psychiatric care were required following the suicide attempt. In the trial of this action, the testimony revolved largely around the emotimony revolved largely around the contention of the plaintiffs that the suicide attempt was a proximate result of the accident of July 17, 1962.

At the conclusion of the trial, the defendant requested an instruction to the jury to the effect that no amount should be awarded for injuries sustained as the result of the voluntary attempt on the part of Mrs. Tocci to take her own life. This instruction was refused by the trial court and this is one of the principal questions raised on appeal.

The evidence presented by the plaintiffs showed that Mrs. Tocci's childhood was emotionally deprived, her mother and father delegating her rearing to an aunt. She has never had any contact with her father and never saw her mother between the time she was one and a half years of age until approximately her sixteenth birthday. She married at twenty-one years of age. After her marriage, her husband went into the military service as a public relations officer for the Air Force. After serving in various air force bases in this county, Lt. Tocci was transfeffrred to an air force base in Japan, where his wife and family joined him. During the course of the marriage and prior to the accident in question there were six children born to the marriage. In Japan, there were several servants to help with household tasks and a Japanese girl was employed to direct the household operations. While in Japan, Mrs. Tocci was hospitalized three times for anxiety or depressive reactions. The last of these hospitalizations, on November 10, 1958, was the result of a suicide gesture or attempt by Mrs. Tocci, in the form of the taking of an overdose of phenobarbital. In August of 1959, Lt. Tocci was transferred to the Air Force Base at Tucson, Arizona. Sometime later, the Japanese girl who had been in charge of the household in Japan joined the Tocci family, not as an employee, but as a friend to live in the home. Mrs. Tocci attended the University of Arizona on a part-time basis, taking classes in accounting. This was the situation at the time of the accident on July 17, 1962.

After the accident Mrs. Tocci began to feel deeply depressed. The primary cause of her depression, as described by Mrs. Tocci, was the fact that the Japanese girl Tocci, was the fact that the Japanese girl took over the management of the home girl was able to perform the normal household tasks so efficiently that Mrs. Tocci began to feel 'useless.' The following quotation from the record illustrates her testimony in this regard:

'Q Did you get better or did you get worse as time went on?

'A The aches and pains got better, but I started feeling worse and worse inside myself, in my--you can call it heart, you can it the head, whatever you want to, but I was feeling worse.

'Q Day by day?

'A The more that I saw Caisson (the nickname used by the Toccis for the Japanese girl) performing my job so efficiently, so well, when I would see her directing the children, children need direction, and she would tell them what to do, they would do it without argument. I would tell them, oh, sometimes they'd do it, but--in fact they always ended up doing it, but usually I had to reach the stage where I'm hollering, then I got results. She was doing this job well, and seemingly without--without strain, without effort, and here is a job that I should be doing.

'I never did it well, but I should be doing it, and here she is doing it so--

'Q Did you have any inclination or did you not have inclination that this was coming?

'A I had an inclination. The more useless--pardon me. The more that I saw Caisson doing my job so well, the more useless I felt. It was obvious, I mean nobody saw me. The bus company didn't see me, but nobody saw me. I was obviously unnecessary, I had--shall we say it was a--it hurt my self respect, is that okay? The word is felt, I felt like I'm not needed, I should--how smoothly the house runs without me.'

The plaintiff testified as to her attempt at suicide of August 18 as follows:

'A * * * I went home and I had in my possession a large bottle of phenobarbital that had been prescribed for a different ailment, for a physical ailment, and I went home, I figured that was my last chance for help.

'I mean I had gone and I had gotten the week-end of rest and calm and peace and actual help, that's what I had been doing at home, resting. So I went home and the children were outside, my husband left. He picked me up, brought me home and he left for the University, he had classes to teach, he had a job to do.

'Caisson was home with the children, the children were outside playing, those that were at the walking stage, they were outside playing and we were friendly, I say we, I mean Caisson and myself, we were friendly with our next door neighbors, and customarily either they would come to our house for coffee in the morning or we would go to their house.

'It was--that's the way housewives operate, I guess, I don't know. But Caisson went next door for a coffee break, she already had the house looking just fine, she went next door for a coffee break and that was my chance. I went in the kitchen where the pills were and got them down off the shelf and I don't know if I took the whole bottle or not, but the exact dossage, I knew at the time, I was able to--to know at the time what I was taking, but I knew that I was taking sufficient to kill myself.'

In October of 1962, the plaintiff was rehospitalized for a few days because of a resurgence of suicidal ideation which was related to the fact that Caisson left the Tocci home.

A psychiatrist treated the plaintiff for emotional illness over the course of approximately six months after the depressive reaction of August 16, during which time he held between forty and forty-five conferences with the patient. This psychiatrist testified at the trial that in his opinion the automobile accident of July 17 was the 'precipitating factor' of the suicide attempt in August. He testified that Mrs. Tocci had an emotional instability related to feelings of being unwanted and inadequate. That her deprived childhood was a substantial factor in causing her to be a dependent person and that the succession of children which she had borne created streeses which intensified her feelings of inadequacy. He further testified that Mrs. Tocci was married to an ambitious, capable person, of high standards of attainment for himself and for those associated with him and that he tended to engender in his wife a feeling that she was not matching up to expectations. In 1954 the aunt who had reared Mrs. Tocci died and this was an important factor, according to the psychiatrist, in bringing about the depressive reactions of his patient. With this background, the doctor testified that the accident of July 17 caused a 'fracture of the ego' which he likened to the fracture of a leg which wasn't able to mend.

To a question on an insurance form questionnaire of 'In your opinion, is disability a result of above described accident solely?', this doctor answered: 'No, her psychiatric symptoms antedated the accident. The accident was merely an additional stress.'

The diagnosis of this treating psychiatrist was supported by a written report, admitted in evidence, of a psychiatrist employed by the defendant. He diagnosed the accident of July 1962 as a 'precipitating factor' of the suicidal attempt.

In support of their contention that under this evidence there was a jury question as to whether the suicide attempt of August was a proximate result of the rear-end collision of the month before, the plaintiffs rely upon the case law of four workmen's compensation cases and one tort case. The workmen's compensation cases are: Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Industrial Commission, 97 Ariz. 256, 399 P.2d 664 (1965); Harper v. Industrial Commission, 24 Ill.2d 103, 180 N.E.2d 480 (1962); Burnight v. Industrial Commission, 181 Cal.App.2d 816, 5 Cal.Rptr. 786 (1960); and Whitehead v. Keene Roofing Co., 43 So.2d 464 (Fla.1949). The tort case is Tate v. Canonica, 180 Cal.App.2d 898, 5 Cal.Rptr. 28 (1960).

These cases are said to be exemplary of a present day 'trend' to...