Life — continued from Page 52
whose loss to another can be calculated by computing the average of other verdicts in dissimilar wrongful death cases. This method of attacking a verdict was specifically rejected by the California Supreme Court in Bertero v. National General Corp. (1974) 13 Cal.3d 43, 65, footnote 12, where it found: The vast variety of and disparity between awards in other cases demon- strate that injuries can seldom be measured on the same scale. The measure of damages suffered is a factu- al question and as such is a subject par- ticularly within the province of the trier of fact. For a reviewing court to upset a jury’s factual determination on the basis of what other juries awarded to other plain- tiffs for other injuries in other cases based upon different evidence would constitute a
serious invasion into the realm of factfind- ing. Thus, we adhere to the previously announced and historically honored standard of reversing as excessive only those judgments which the entire record, when viewed most favorably to the judgment, indicates were rendered as the result of passion and prejudice on the part of the jurors.
(Id., emphasis added) (See also Rufo, 86 Cal.App.4th 573, 615 (rejecting the defendants’ citation of a wrongful death verdict in another case); Wright, 219 Cal.App.3d at 356 (same).)
Conclusion A wrongful-death case with limited
or no economic damages is not a curse; rather, it can be a blessing. By focusing on noneconomic damages, you can lift
the jurors above the mundane to achieve true justice.
Deborah Chang is an attorney at the Los
Angeles law firm of Panish Shea & Boyle LLP (
www.psblaw.com) where she focuses on wrongful death, complex personal injury, and products-liability actions. She has been a trial lawyer for 24 years and is licensed in California, Florida, and Connecticut. She can be reached at
chang@psblaw.com. Brian J. Panish is a partner at the Los
Angeles firm of Panish Shea & Boyle LLP (
www.psblaw.com), and is a frequent lecturer on all aspects of trial procedure in California and throughout the United States. He is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates and was the 2010 recipient of the California American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.
54 — The Advocate Magazine JANUARY 2012
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