Krueger v. Meyer

[762]

Opinion

EVANS, J.

In this action for damages for personal injuries, defendants appeal from an order granting plaintiff a new trial on the issue of damages.

Plaintiff was injured in a one-car automobile accident while riding as a passenger in a vehicle owned by defendants John Meyer and Verna Meyer, driven by their daughter Cheryl. As a result of the accident, plaintiff suffered a compression fracture of the fifth thoracic vertebra, scalp lacerations, and a cut hip. Evidence of her medical expense in the amount of $1,395.67 was not disputed. The matter was submitted to a jury which returned a verdict for plaintiff in the amount of $1,600. After entry of judgment on the verdict, plaintiff filed her motion for new trial on the specific ground that the jury award of damages was inadequate. (Code Civ. Proc., § 657, subd. 5.)

On July 16, plaintiff’s motion was heard by the court, and on July 19, the following order was made: “Pursuant to the provisions of C.C.P. Section 657 and 657(5), the court grants the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial on the issue of damages on the grounds that inadequate damages were awarded to plaintiff. The issues at the new trial hereby granted shall be limited to the amount of damages to be awarded plaintiff, which damages will not in any event be allowed to exceed the sum of $15,000.” No subsequent specification of reasons was filed by the trial court as required by section 657 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The order appealed from must be reversed.

In construing the 1965 amendments to section 657 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Supreme Court in

Mercer

v.

Perez

(1968) 68 Cal.2d 104 [65 Cal.Rptr. 315, 436 P.2d 315], determined that the Legislature had two basic motives in requiring specification of reasons for the granting of new trials: (1) to promote judicial deliberation prior to judicial action, and (2) to make the right of review more meaningful. As the court stated at page 113, “Accordingly, one of the functions of the requirement of specification of reasons is to promote judicial deliberation before judicial action, and thereby ‘discourage hasty or ill-considered orders for new trial.’ (Review of Selected 1965 Code Legislation (Cont. Ed. Bar), p. 81.) This objective is furthered, it bears emphasizing, by the change in the law which now forbids the judge from shifting to the attorney for the