Wilson v. Rich
| Decision Date | 25 April 1932 |
| Docket Number | 29976 |
| Citation | 141 So. 287,163 Miss. 403 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | WILSON v. RICH |
Five hundred dollars to woman for injuries, where objective symptoms showed no serious and permanent injury but her subjective symptoms did, Held not inadequate.
APPEAL from circuit court of Harrison county, HON. W. A. WHITE Judge.
Action by Mrs. W. L. Wilson against J. C. Rich. From the judgment plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Affirmed.
Mize, Mize & Thompson, of Gulfport, and Gex & Gex, of Bay St. Louis, for appellant.
The verdict is shocking to conscience.
Appellant is a woman who had earned, undisputedly, five thousand dollars a year before the injury, who, after the injury was totally incapacitated for work, at least to the day of the trial, nearly a year after the accident, and her condition was probably permanent as the testimony showed.
This court has not hesitated in similar cases to set aside the verdict and to grant a new trial on the question of damages only.
McLaughlin v. R. W. Fagin Peel Co., 125 Miss. 116; Coccora v. Light & Traction Co., 126 Miss. 713; Hicks v. Corso & Cefalu, 131. Miss. 659; Azen v. Sperier et al., 117 So. 117.
It is a well known fact that the medical profession in its practice is built to a large extent on subjective symptoms and if this were not true there would be many deaths daily because the doctors did not take into consideration their subjective symptoms.
W. L. Guice, of Biloxi, and John L. Heiss, of Gulfport, for appellee.
If there is any dispute as to an injury, this is to be judged solely by the jury, and if there is a dispute as to the extent of the injury, this is likewise in the province of the jury, and the court will not invade this province unless the record plainly shows facts, undisputed, upon which the jury could have placed only one construction and under which the jury have rendered a verdict that is so small or so large as to shock one's conscience, thereby causing to spring into existence a presumption that this verdict was the result of passion or prejudice.
The very permanence of our jury system depends upon not invading its province without due cause, and, we can conceive of no more flagrant invasion of the province of the jury than to take away from it its right to judge the credibility of the witnesses testifying before it, not alone by the testimony of the witnesses but by the actions and appearances of the witnesses as they testify.
Unless the jury was bound by every word that fell from appellant's mouth, without a right to judge as to the truth or untruth of these words from her appearance and from her other testimony, then the jury had a perfect right in this case to see that the woman was not injured at all, or to...
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