Wildeboar v. Petersen
Citation | 166 N.W. 464,182 Iowa 1185 |
Decision Date | 16 February 1918 |
Docket Number | 31026 |
Parties | KATIE WILDEBOER, Appellee, v. HENRY PETERSEN, Appellant |
Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
Appeal from Tama District Court.--JAMES W. WILLETT, Judge.
ACTION to recover damages for forcible defilement. Judgment for the plaintiff in the court below. Defendant appeals. Opinion states the facts.--Reversed, and new trial ordered.
Reversed and a new trial ordered.
Thomas & Thomas, for appellant.
J. H Scales, R. P. Kepler, and C. A. Pratt, for appellee.
This action is brought to recover damages based on the alleged forcible defilement of the plaintiff by the defendant. The plaintiff, in her petition, after having alleged the facts upon which she predicates her right to recover, says that because of the defilement, and as a natural consequence thereof, she gave birth to a child, to her great injury; and further, as a proximate result of said defilement, she became sick and sore, and sustained injury to her person, health, reputation, and feelings, suffered great humiliation and sorrow, to her damage in the sum of $ 15,000, and a further sum of $ 200 which she was compelled thereby to pay for medicine, medical treatment, and nursing. The cause was tried to a jury, and a verdict returned for the plaintiff in the sum of $ 5,150. The jury, at the time it returned its verdict, returned also answers to special interrogatories submitted by the court, as follows:
It is the contention of the defendant that the amount of exemplary damages allowed is so disproportioned to the amount of actual damages assessed that the verdict ought not to stand as returned. This, we think, must be sustained. In holding this, we do not enter into a discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence to justify the jury's finding as to the actual damages sustained. It is true that the amount of exemplary damages allowed in any particular case rests in the sound discretion of the jury. In the exercise of this discretion, the jury cannot be allowed to assess exemplary damages grossly disproportioned to the amount of actual damages found by the jury. The actual expenses, as shown by this record, sustained by the plaintiff, were $ 57.05 for her doctor's bill, and $ 16 for the services of an undertaker in burying the child. It appears that the child died soon after its birth. It will be noted that the plaintiff, in her petition, claimed $ 200 on account of this matter.
It is apparent that the jury was misled is assessing actual damages, but we have no way of knowing just how much the jury would have assessed, had the court not placed a maximum limit on the amount it could assess as actual damages. The court, in its fifteenth instruction, given as a guide to the jury as to what might be considered in determining and fixing the amount which plaintiff was entitled to recover as actual damages after reciting her claim, said, in substance:
Now it is apparent, from the statement of the plaintiff claimed in her petition, that the $ 200 claimed as actual damages was limited to the amount which she was required to pay, or became obligated to pay, for medicine, medical treatment, and nursing, and that the $ 15,000 included all the other injuries which she claims she sustained, and was...
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