DeVane v. Bauman

Citations

• 82 Fla. 346

Syllabus

<p>1. .Where the amount of a verdict is so great or so inadequate as to shock the judicial conscience or to indicate that the jury must have been unduly influenced in- some way, or swayed by bias, passion or prejudice, a new trial should be granted.</p> <p>2. Where there is difficulty in reconciling the verdict with the justice of the case and the manifest weight of the evidence, n. new trial should be granted.</p> <p>3. In a suit for damages for personal injuries it is competent for the trial court if it thinks the damages so small as to indicate that the jury must have omitted to take into account some of the heads of damages which were properly involved in the plaintiff’s claim, to set aside the verdict and order a new trial at the instance of the plaintiff.</p> <p>4. Section 3147 of the General Statutes gives the elements of the damages that may be recovered thereunder, and the mere fact that the amount of the damages is left to the discretion of .the jury does not make the statute violative of the constitutional guaranty of due process of law, since the finding is regulated by applicable principles of law, and the verdict rendered is subject to approval by the trial court and to such appellate review as may be provided by law for the correction of material and prejudicial errors, if any occur in the trial of the cause.</p>