Fisher v. Jansen

Citations

• 128 Ill. 549
• 21 N.E. 598

Syllabus

<p>1. Measure oe damages—in action for personal injury—resulting from negligence. In an action to recover for a personal injury caused by negligence, it is not competent for the plaintiff to prove what he had made in business prior to his injuries. What any business man, however competent and skilled, might make in the future in any kind of trade, is too much a matter of speculation and contingency to be susceptible of direct evidence.</p> <p>2. A party personally injured from negligence, may recover of the defendant damages for his inability to labor or transact business in the future, resulting from his injuries, without any evidence of his success in business prior to his injury, or the extent of his earnings. Direct proof of any specific pecuniary loss is not indispensable to a recovery.</p> <p>3. In an action by a plaintiff aged about fifty-three years, and temporarily not engaged in business, to recover for personal injuries inflicted through negligence, the court instructed for the plaintiff, in substance, that if the jury found, from the evidence, that the plaintiff was entitled to recover any damages, the jury had aright to and should take into consideration all the facts and circumstances in evidence before them, and that they might consider the nature and extent of the plaintiff’s injuries, if any, testified about by the witnesses; his pain and suffering, if any, resulting from such injuries; the permanent disability, if any, caused by said injuries; the money necessarily paid, if any, by the plaintiff in and about endeavoring to be healed or cured of said injuries ; and any future pain or suffering, or future inability to labor or transact business, if any, that the jury may believe, from the evidence, the plaintiff would sustain by reason of injuries received. There was no direct proof of the earning ability of the plaintiff: Held, that there was no error in the instruction.</p>