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216 Ala. 684

114 So 139

Gray v. Cooper

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 30, 1927

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1927-06-30

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Refused charge B, as follows: ‘If you believe the evidence, you cannot award the plaintiff more than nominal damages for loss of time from his business or occupation due to his injury’ — should have been given. The fact that plaintiff testified that he conducted the business as a furniture dealer; was the ‘only employee in the concern’; his duties required him to handle furniture; that he had not been able to go back to work; and indicated the time or duration of his absence, was not a compliance with the requirement for specific data on which to rest damages causing him to ‘lose time from his work,’ . . . . (emphasis added)”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Eternal Rest Cemetery Corp. v. Pugh

Relies on Birmingham Electric Co. v. Cleveland · Montgomery & Eufaula Railway Co. v. Mallette · Birmingham Ry. L. & P. Co. v. Colbert

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1927-06-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently January 1979

20 state decisions

60192719301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

THOMAS, J.

¶1 The trial was had on the simple negligence count and pleas of the general issue, and contributory negligence. Count one was not subject to demurrer directed thereto. Tillery v. Walker, ante, p. 676, 114 So. 137.

¶2 The subject of permanent injuries under the required pleading and evidence was the subject of recent discussion in Birmingham Electric Co. v. Cleveland (Ala. Sup.) 113 So. 403, 1 and we have no desire to depart therefrom. The reasonable inferences from the evidence prevented the affirmative instruction requested. And there was no error in refusing charges, which we indicate as A and C.

¶3 Refused charge B, as follows: “If you believe the evidence, you cannot award the plaintiff more than nominal damages for loss of time from his business or occupation due to his injury”' — should have been given. The fact that plaintiff testified that he conducted the business as a furniture dealer; was the “only employee in the- concern”; his duties required him to handle furniture; that he had not been able to go back to work; and indicated the time or duration of his absence, was not a compliance with the requirement for specific data on which to rest damages causing him to “lose time from his work,” as declared for in the complaint.

¶4 In M. & E. Ry. Co. v. Mallette, 92 Ala. 209, 9 So. 363, it was said:

“There was no evidence in the case as to any pecuniary loss resulting to the plaintiff from inability to pursue Ms avocations in consequence of the injury complained of non con-stat, but that during this period, and notwithstanding his- disability, he received fully as much as he would have done had he not been disabled at all.”

¶5 This rule has been adhered to by this court in B. R. L. & P. Co. v. Simpson, 190 Ala. 138, 67 So. 385; B. R. L. & P. Co. v. Colbert, 190 Ala. 229, 67 So. 513.

¶6*686 The case was one for the jury on the issues of fact. It is unnecessary to advert to the motion, since there was error in refusing charge B.

¶7 Reversed and remanded.

ANDERSON, C. J., and SAYRE and GARDNER, JJ., concur.
1

¶8 Ante, p. 455.

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