The
case reversed a $1,000,000.00 judgment against Dr. Laney and remanded the
matter for a new trial. The case largely
dealt with improper jury instructions and improper comments by the Plaintiff’s
attorney in closing. The main issue the
court reversed on was that the value of life is not recoverable in a wrongful
death case. The Court reasoned that
Mississippi Code Annotated §11-1-69(2)
prohibits the recovery for the loss of enjoyment of life caused by death in a
wrongful death case and by analogy any instruction concerning the “value of
life” is therefore reversible error.
If
you read the opinion, the damages that are recoverable as outlined in ¶6 of the
opinion appear to encompass the value of a person’s life but you cannot
instruct the jury to determine the actual value of a person’s life due to the
statutory prohibition.
From my reading
of the opinion, you can legally recover the items that encompass the value of
the deceased’s life which include “(1) the present net cash value of the life expectancy of
the deceased, (2) the loss of the companionship and society of the decedent,(3) the pain and
suffering of the decedent between the time of injury and death, and (4) punitive
damages.” McGowan v. Estate of
Wright, 524 So. 2d 308, 311 (Miss. 1988) (citing Jesco, Inc. v. Whitehead, 451 So. 2d 706, 710 (Miss. 1984)); Sheffield v. Sheffield, 405 So.2d 1314, 1318
(Miss. 1981); Dickey v. Parham,
331 So. 2d 917, 918-919 (Miss. 1976);Thornton v. Ins. Co. of North America, 287 So. 2d 262, 265 (Miss.
1973); Scott v. K-B Photo Service, Inc., 260 So. 2d 842, 844 (Miss. 1972); Boyd Constr. Co. v. Bilbro, 210
So.2d
637, 643 (Miss. 1968). However, you
cannot ask the jury or instruct the jury to actually award you the value of the
person’s life.
My
take is that you cannot legally instruct the jury to do what they are going to
do from a practical standpoint anyway. Anyone have another take on it?
No comments:
Post a Comment