MacCubbin v. Wallace

Lowe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellants appeal from judgments in their favor for damages resulting from an automobile accident. The claims ³²⁶ are that the jury in the Baltimore City Court provided inadequate compensation generally, and no damages for loss of consortium specifically. Appellants also complain that evidence of recompense from a collateral source was introduced; however, the issue was not preserved for our review, either by objection, Md. Rule 522, or by request for instruction.

Md. Rule 554. The Court of Appeals reiterated in Rephann v. Armstrong, 217 Md. 90, 93 (1958) and subsequent cases, that the size of the verdict is almost never a matter for review by the Court. See Leizear v. Butler, 226 Md. 171, 177-179 (1961), and cases cited and discussed therein; Johnson v. Zerivitz, 234 Md. 113, 118 (1964); Abraham v. Moler, 253 Md. 215, 219 (1969). Nothing in the present case suggests an exception to the rule.

If the adequacy of the verdict were subject to our review, we could say no more than that the declination of the jury to compensate for loss of consortium in any dollar amount, in the face of evidence of apparent incapacity during hospitalization, is peculiar perhaps, but not error. Nor can we say that the jury disregarded the consortium instructions, the propriety of which we note appellants do not question. To the contrary, however, (although not noted by appellant) is the Florida appellate court’s ruling in Kinne v. Burgin, 311 So. 2d 695 (Fla. App. 1975), where the woman’s husband had also been injured in an automobile accident.

The court held that the jury’s zero award to the wife’s consortium claim was improper and susceptible to an objective conclusion that the jury had not considered the wife’s damages as instructed by the court. The consortium portion of the case was severed and remanded for consideration by a jury of the competent and uncontradicted testimony of the impact that the injury had had upon the couple’s marital relations, and specifically of the wife’s consortium loss. See Annot., 74 A.L.R.3d 805 , 830 (1976). We wonder, however, what the appellate court would do if the second jury also returned a zero verdict.

Whatever the rule is elsewhere, in Maryland the policy of seldom reviewing damages in jury verdicts extends to a monetary award of zero for one element of an injury (e.g., for pain and suffering), despite the jury’s acknowledgment of the ³²⁷ injury by awarding medical and special damages for it. Leizear v. Butler, supra. The adequacy of such a verdict is not reviewable on appeal under the decisions of the Court of Appeals, even where it includes no compensation upon a specific claim of damage. Id. at 179 .

Loss of consortium, as used in Maryland, means the loss of society, affection, assistance and conjugal fellowship. Deems v. Western Maryland Ry., 247 Md. 95, 100 (1967). It “includes” the loss or impairment of sexual relations. Id.

Appellants contend that the husband’s hospitalization for nearly three weeks conclusively proves their lack