Seitz v. Witzberger

32 Ohio C.C. Dec. 655, 18 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 160, 1911 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 247
CourtSummit Circuit Court
DecidedApril 12, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 32 Ohio C.C. Dec. 655 (Seitz v. Witzberger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Summit Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seitz v. Witzberger, 32 Ohio C.C. Dec. 655, 18 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 160, 1911 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 247 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1911).

Opinion

MARVIN, J.

August J. Witzberger brought suit against Gottlieb V. Seitz, claiming damages by reason of the loss of service of his minor son, Emil Oliver Witzberger, because of injuries received by.the son at the hands of Seitz in an assault and battery. -

Defense was made that the son was not injured and that the plaintiff was not entitled to the services of the son in any event, and that no expense had been caused, nor loss of service, by reason of the injuries inflicted upon the son by Seitz.

The trial resulted in a verdict for- $400 in favor of the. plaintiff below.

[656]*656On motion for a new trial the court stated that the judgment would be reversed unless the plaintiff would remit $75 from the amount of the judgment. This amount was remitted and judgment entered for $325; it is here sought to reverse that judgment.

As to the question of whether the son received injuries at the hands of Seitz and thereby was unable to work for any length of time, this was submitted to the jury; the jury found that the injuries were received; that the son was thereby rendered unable to perform service, and under the evidence we are not surprised that the jury so found. It is urged, however, that the father lost nothing in the way of service of the son, who was at the time about seventeen years old, because, it is said, that the evidence shows that the wages the son earned (if he was earning.wages at the time of the injury), were paid, in part at least, to his mother. This fact should have no bearing on the case. The mother seems rather to have been the treasurer of the family, and the money earned by the father, as well as by the son, was in large part, at least, paid into her hands. But even if all the son’s wages had been paid into the hands of his mother instead of the hands of the father at the time he was working, so long as the father and mother lived together and the three constituted a single family, it would not indicate at all that the father was not the proper party to sue for the loss of the earnings of the son.

It is urged on the part of the plaintiff in error that since it appears that the son, who was not at the time of the trial of full age, was then engaged in doing business on his own account, the presumption is that he was emancipated by his father before the time of this alleged injury.

This is not well taken. The presumption is the other way. So long as the son is a minor, the presumption is that his father is entitled to his earnings.

It was sought to show on the trial that the son’s injuries were probably due to some hurt received by him in the playing of foot-ball.

As already said, we are not surprised that the jury reached the conclusion that he was injured at the hands of the plaintiff [657]*657in error, and that his inability to work has been the result of such injuries. On the trial it appeared that the son was in a hospital at Cleveland for about sixty days, and the father was permitted to testify that he paid for a room and board at the hospital for his son while he was there $1.25 per day. The only other expense which was made to appear in the evidence, to which the father was put, was some $10 or $12 for medicines and $5 paid to Dr. Lyon. It should have been said that the petition seeks to recover not only for the loss of service of the son, but also for the expense to which the father was put by reason of the son’s injuries.

The evidence as to the $1.25 per day paid at the hospital for room and board of the son was put in under the objection of the defendant below, the court ruling at the time the evidence was introduced, that this was a proper subject for compensation. But, on the motion for a new trial, the court seems to have reached a different conclusion, and to have required the remittitur of $75 from the verdict, because he thought that the father was not entitled to be reimbursed on account of this payment. On the part of the plaintiff in error it is urged that it can not be known that the jury found that the father was entitled to just $75 for this account, and that, therefore, the remittitur may not have been put upon the proper basis, and that the amount for which judgment was finally allowed may be a different amount from that which the jury would have found, but for the evidence in relation to the room and board.

It is difficult to understand how the plaintiff in error can complain in this regard. The evidence was that the son was in the hospital about sixty days at an expense of $1.25 per day. If the jury allowed for this, it is hardly possible that it could have allowed more than $75 and therefore the deduction made from the verdict by the court, when it entered judgment, must have relieved the plaintiff in error from any prejudice that he could have received by the admission of this evidence. "We are of the opinion, however, that the evidence was entirely competent, and that if the father was entitled to recover at all in this case he was entitled to recover for this hospital expense. It is said that he ought not to recover for this because whether the son was in[658]*658jured or not, the father would have had to furnish him with board and a home, and that the duty thus imposed upon him as a father was not greater because of any injury which necessitated his being taken care of at the hospital. This reasoning is not sound. Though it is the duty imposed by law upon parents to furnish a home and board for his minor children, it is no part of his duty to furnish them a home and board at a hospital where the expenses are $1.25 a day, when such hospital service is not necessary by reason of some disability of the minor, and in this case the disability of the minor was brought about by the wrongdoing of the plaintiff in error. These people were not in circumstances such as made the expense of each member of the family for room' and board $1.25 a day, at home. Every head of a family understands that probably the expenses at home would be the same whether this boy was at home or not, and that practically the room and board paid for at the hospital was just that much additional expense, caused by the injury to the boy. If the plaintiff in error thought this was too much, perhaps it would have been- proper for him to have shown by the evidence what the fair expense would have been to the father to have kept the boy at his own house and thereby reduce the amount which he should recover by reason of the hospital expenses; but even-if such evidence would have been admissible, it still would not render incompetent 'the evidence as to the hospital expenses and, in the absence of any evidence on that subject, we should not feel warranted in reversing the case, even if the judgment included the whole amount allowed for expenses at the hospital. We suppose that the attorneys-in this case and that all men who do business for others, when they are required to go from home to attend to such business, regard it as entirely legitimate that their hotel expenses shall be paid by the employer, and that none of us would regard it as a good answer against the payment of such expenses by the employer, that if the employed had remained at his home, he would have been at the expense of his board and room.

Complaint is further made that the court erred in its charge to the jury. The first statement -in the charge pointed out as erroneous reads in these words:

[659]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
32 Ohio C.C. Dec. 655, 18 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 160, 1911 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seitz-v-witzberger-ohcirctsummit-1911.