Western & A.R. Co. v. Young

• Citation: 10 S.E. 197,83 Ga. 512
• Parties: WESTERN & A. R. Co. v. YOUNG.
• Decision Date: 21 October 1889
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

10 S.E. 197

83 Ga. 512

WESTERN & A. R. Co. v. YOUNG.

Supreme Court of Georgia

October 21, 1889

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The law does not contemplate absolute, but only a qualified or relative, compensation in damages for personal injuries resulting in the loss of a limb, there being no money equivalent for such injuries.

2. The damages found being extreme, if not excessive, the error of the court in charging the jury on that branch of the case is cause for a new trial; the error being in referring the jury to certain elements of damage as to which there was no evidence, such as habits, avocation, money made by labor prospect of increased earnings, prospects of obtaining steady and remunerative employment, etc., the person injured being a child nine years of age.

3. No other errors appear, of sufficient importance to require a new trial, or even to merit discussion. If any at all, they were harmless.

4. There was no issue in the case, and no controverted fact, to which the admission made by counsel on the former trial as to ringing the bell upon the engine was relevant.

5. In admitting doubtful evidence, the better practice is not to call attention of the jury to its doubtful character; but to do so, it seems, is but an irregularity.

6. The city council of Atlanta could, by ordinance adopt a city code compiled by the city attorney. The adoption, not the compilation, was the legislative act.

7. Due care according to age and capacity is all the law exacts of a child of tender years. Ordinary care, which is that of every prudent man, is not the standard for a child.

8. The refusal to charge as requested, touching the mode of arriving at a verdict, was not error.

9. As matter of direction, this court orders that the new trial be confined to assessing the damages, the right to recover having been satisfactorily established.

Error from city court of Atlanta; VAN EPPS, Judge.

Julius L. Brown, for plaintiff in error.

Hoke & Burton Smith, for defendant in error.

BLECKLEY C.J.

1. Viewed from a legal stand-point, the damages awarded by the jury seem to us extreme, if not excessive. We do not mean to say that, tried by an absolute standard, there is any such thing as compensation in money for the loss of an arm, or for the pain and suffering occasioned by being dismembered under the crushing wheel of a car. Only a qualified or relative compensation is possible; and the law, which is always practical, never visionary, contemplates the latter, not the former. It recognizes the restrictions imposed by many considerations, such as the limited wealth of the country and the necessity of sparing the existence of industrial contrivances and agencies for carrying on great departments of business. In the absolute sense, damages equivalent to all the assets of a railroad company might not be excessive, nor even adequate, for a serious personal injury resulting from its negligence; but, in any practical sense, the damages in each case must be graduated so that there may be railroads left in existence, and so that all like injuries occasioned by their use may be compensated in some reasonable degree. For a few injured persons to recover amounts not so graduated would perhaps, in the end, leave nothing with which to compensate others having claims equally as strong and meritorious. We fear that juries often aim at too high a standard of damages where corporations have to pay them. Our observation is that in corporation cases the amounts found are very frequently too great, but rarely, if ever, too small. It is not a healthy state of public feeling and opinion when, through affairs of justice, a strong current runs either against or in favor of a particular class of suitors. Every thoughtful man knows that nothing is so essential in meting out justice as rigid impartiality; that is, freedom from prejudice on the one hand, and from undue sympathy on the other. Not only theoretically, but actually and practically, the law is no respecter of persons; neither should be its ministers. No man can fitly administer law in its true spirit, either from the bench or the jury-box, without being as impartial as the law itself. In damage cases of the sort now under consideration, the law trusts implicitly the enlightened conscience of impartial jurors, and courts can relieve against excessive verdicts only where impartiality is to be gravely questioned; but they can and should do so in every case where departure from this prime virtue is manifest. As we are constrained to direct a new trial in the present case on another ground, we need not further consider the ground of excessive damages.

2. With so strong an inclination to the opinion that the damages are excessive, we hold ourselves bound to give the losing party the benefit of any substantial error in the charge of the court touching the subject of damages. We accordingly award a new trial for error in the charge complained of in the fifty-fourth ground of the motion, which is as follows "The plaintiff claims, in the first place, that his capacity to labor and earn money during his future life has been permanently destroyed, as a result of defendant's negligence. The law has no procrustean rule for ascertainment of damages of this sort. Health, sex, heredity, habits, avocation, money made by one's labor, prospect of increased earnings from experience or skill...