Britting v. Dewes

KNIGHT, J. Plaintiff was injured while alighting from an automobile standing at the bottom of a hill on Sacramento Street in San Francisco when another automobile belonging to the defendant Peter Dewes, which had been parked at the top of the hill, rolled driverless and unattended down the hill, and at a rate of speed estimated between thirty and .forty miles an hour crashed into the automobile from which plaintiff was alighting; and on account of the personal injuries sustained she brought this action for damages. At the trial, which took place before the court sitting with a jury, negligence on the part of the defendant was admitted, and consequently the question of the amount of damages, if any, plaintiff was entitled to receive, was the sole issue the jury was called upon to determine. The total amount of damages sued for, general and special, was $7,430, and the jury [465]awarded $3,000, which defendant contended was grossly excessive, and he moved for a new trial mainly on that ground. The motion was denied, and defendant has taken this appeal from the judgment, contending here, as he did before the trial court, that the amount of damages awarded by the jury is grossly excessive.

With respect to, the matter of the alleged special damages, it appears that for nearly eight years preceding the accident plaintiff had been employed as secretary and assistant to the manager of a company engaged in the shipment and distiibution of fruits and vegetables throughout the United States; that her duties consisted of secretarial office work and traveling about to different distant places to attend to the proper distribution of the shipments; that she received therefor weekly wages of $40 and an additional weekly payment of $25 for living expenses; and plaintiff testified that on account of the injuries she received she was unable to continue on with said employment, and as a consequence was deprived for a period of thirty-two weeks of her earnings of $40 a week, and the additional weekly sum of $25 paid to her as living expenses; that during such period of time she had been able to earn only $150 from other sources.

In considering the question of whether the jury’s award is excessive, it is, of course, impossible to ascertain what portion of the total award of $3,000, if any, the jury allocated to cover the alleged special damages sustained. It would seem, however, that if as plaintiff testified and the jury impliedly found, plaintiff’s injuries were of such serious nature as to prevent her for the period of time mentioned from continuing the duties of the employment she had followed preceding the accident, the trial judge was justified in holding on motion for new trial that the amount of damages awarded by the jury was not. grossly excessive.