The following blog entry is written from a defendant’s position after a jury trial verdict for plaintiff. Reviewing this kind of briefing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in a personal injury case present such issues to the court.
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this auto accident/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
As discussed above, awards in other cases are a useful benchmark for the Court in reaching a determination concerning the reasonableness of an award of pain and suffering. That is also true of an award for loss of consortium. A review of similar cases shows that the injuries to Ms. Ward’s marriage are qualitatively not of a kind which could justify the amount awarded her by the jury: See Mendoza v. Car Club, Inc., supra, 81 Cal.App.4th at pp. 292-293, 300 [court upholds jury award of $100,000 for loss of consortium to wife whose husband suffered a broken neck in accident involving golf cart]; Springmeyer v. Ford Motor Co., supra, 60 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1546-1547 [plaintiff’s arm severed by fan, resulting in permanent loss of use of dominant hand after reattachment, chronic and severe pain, and inability to work, jury awarded non-economic damages of $500,000 for loss of consortium];
Rosh v. Cave Imaging Systems, Inc., supra, 26 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1232-1233 [court confirms jury award of $1 million in non-economic damages to wife of plaintiff who suffered permanent paralysis from the waist down and chronic radiating pain as a result of being shot in the back]; Rodriguez v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., supra, 87 Cal.App.3d at pp. 641-642, 653-655, 664 [where 22-year old plaintiff was hit in the head and back with a 630-pound pipe, rendering him triplegic and in constant pain, but with normal life expectancy; court upholds $500,000 award to wife for loss of consortium]. Thus, by comparison to these awards for those injuries– tripleglic, paraplegic, loss of hand, broken neck–the $1,620,000 award to Ms. Ward for loss of consortium is not fair compensation and is thus excessive.
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, defendant Yuri Zenkov respectfully requests that this Court order a substantial reduction in each of the jury’s awards of damages to the plaintiffs in this action. If plaintiffs are unwilling to accept remittitur, Mr. Zenkov asks this Court order a new trial.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.