Taylor v. Lowenstein

SPENCE, J.

This is an action for personal injuries. Upon a trial by jury plaintiff recovered a judgment for $7,500, from which judgment defendant appeals.

’ Appellant’s first contention is that the verdict is so excessive as to indicate passion or prejudice on the part of the jury. A review of the evidence convinces us that this contention is without merit. Prior to the accident respondent was a healthy, robust woman of the age of fifty-four years. She had been a professional nurse for thirty-five years and from that work she had an average monthly income of $160 per month. The accident occurred on the Pacific highway near Cottonwood on June 16, 1928. The force of the impact threw respondent from the automobile she was driving into a water' ditch adjoining the highway. When she recovered consciousness she was pinned under the machine in mud and water with a portion of the machine across her hips. Respondent did not suffer any broken bones, but in addition to lacerations and contusions her major injuries consisted of concussion of the brain and nerve injury. The lacerations and contusions themselves were of a serious nature. She was “black and blue from head to foot and skin was knocked off her body in patches

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as large as your hand”. One wound on the back of her head was approximately three inches in length, about one-half inch in depth and extended down to the bone. Her physician in San Francisco found this wound to be dirty and badly 'infected and treated it over a period of time. He enumerated the symptoms upon which he based his diagnosis of concussion' of the brain. They included constant pain in the head, inability to sleep, physical and mental weakness, ringing in the ears, lack of memory, inability to concentrate or think of the words she wanted. He stated that she had “all the typical and classical symptoms of concussion of the brain”. The nerve injury was evidenced by extreme tenderness and pain around the tenth, eleventh and twelfth dorsal vertebrae. The nerves emanating from there are largely those of “the region of the sciatic. Her numbness was principally in the left leg.” Respondent remained in San Francisco until August, 1928. She had a nurse for eight days and was thereafter eared for by her daughter. Her physician did not attempt to treat her for the concussion or nerve injury as “nature has to attend to the cure of those things”. Respondent was compelled to abandon her contemplated return to work in Ventura. In August, 1928, she left San Francisco for the state of Washington, where she remained with another daughter until shortly before the trial in January, 1930. According to the testimony of respondent and her physician, she was incapacitated during this entire period. Her testimony showed that her pains in the head and in the spinal region were almost continuous, dull at times and sharp at other times. She had fainting spells, one of which lasted about six hours. For several months she did not awaken naturally from sleep, but was awakened by the application of water to her face. For eight months she slept in a chair instead of a bed. During part of the time she was unable to walk alone and the injury to her hip evidenced itself by a catch in her step. She had considerable difficulty in sitting down and arising and also experienced difficulty in breathing. At the time of the trial, over a year and a half after the accident, she was still suffering with pains in the head and the region of the hips and was incapable of any sustained standing on her feet or of lifting objects. She was unable to do housework and many