Swendsen v. Pacific Electric Ry. Co.

SLOSS, J.

A train operated by the defendant collided with a car (also under defendant’s control), in which plain

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tiff was riding as a passenger. The plaintiff was injured, and brought this action to recover damages. The defendant admitted liability, and the only matter in issue was the amount of damage. The jury returned a verdict for nineteen thousand five hundred dollars'in plaintiff’s favor. Judgment for this sum was entered. The defendant appeals from the judgment and from an order denying its motion for a new trial.

It is claimed that the verdict was excessive. There was testimony to show that, at the time of the accident, the plaintiff was twenty-nine years of age. Her expectancy of life was thirty-five years or more. She was a young woman in perfect health, of unusual vigor and vitality, and had been earning, as a masseuse, a yearly income of five thousand six hundred dollars. The trial took place ten months after the accident. During the intervening period the plaintiff had been unable to do any work, and she remained incapacitated at the time of the trial. Her condition had not improved during the interval ; on the contrary, it was-, in some respects, worse than it had been shortly after the accident. She was afflicted with a twitching of the face. The sense of feeling had gone from her right arm and from the right upper quarter of her body. Her power of speech was virtually lost. The sight of one eye was impaired, and she was unable to walk without the aid of a cane. One witness testified that she was not “like the same person in any particular”; another, that she seemed to be “a total wreck.” From the testimony of medical experts, it remained doubtful how long the effects of the injury would last, or to what extent, if at all, there would be a recovery. She had suffered a great deal of pain, and was not free from pain at the time of the trial. She had been confined to her bed for nine weeks, had been in a sanatorium for three months, and had incurred an expense of over nine hundred dollars for medical treatment and nursing. In this state of the evidence, it is idle to argue that the amount.of the damages awarded was in excess of the amount which the jury might reasonably and fairly have found to have been sustained.

During the trial the plaintiff fainted, and was removed from the courtroom to the witness-room. The court ordered a recess for ten minutes. When the trial was resumed counsel for defendant asked that the jury be discharged, upon the ground that certain members of the jury had looked through the door into the room in which plaintiff was lying uncon