Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Tocci

414 P.2d 179, 3 Ariz. App. 330, 1966 Ariz. App. LEXIS 617
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedMay 17, 1966
Docket2 CA-CIV 140
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 414 P.2d 179 (Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Tocci) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Tocci, 414 P.2d 179, 3 Ariz. App. 330, 1966 Ariz. App. LEXIS 617 (Ark. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

MOLLOY, Judge.

This is an appeal from a jury verdict awarding the appellees, plaintiffs below, $10,000 for injuries resulting from a collision between a transit bus belonging to the appellant, Tucson Rapid Transit Company, and an automobile being driven by the plaintiff, Anne Tocci.

On July 17, 1962, Mrs. Tocci was stopped in a lane of traffic behind other cars stopped for a red light at a street intersection in the City of Tucson, Arizona. The defendant’s bus, approaching the intersection in the same direction as Mrs. Tocci’s car, collided with the rear-end of the Tocci car. Mrs. Tocci was tossed about in the collision and struck her head on the sun visor of her car. Following the collision, Mrs. Tocci was examined at the military hospital at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. No broken bones or other physical injury needing medical attention were found. She was given a sedative and told to go home to rest.

After the accident, Mrs. Tocci became emotionally depressed. On August 16, 1962 she reported at the Base Hospital complaining of a severe depression. She was hospitalized over a weekend but upon being *332 released, on August 18, 1962, Mrs. Tocci consumed a large dose of phenobarbital capsules in an attempt to take her life. Hospitalization, and considerable psychiatric care were required following the suicide attempt. In the trial of this action, the testimony revolved largely around the emotional illness of Mrs. Tocci and the contention of the plaintiffs that the suicide attempt was a proximate result of the accident of July 17, 1962.

At the conclusion of the trial, the defendant requested an instruction to the jury to the effect that no amount should be awarded for injuries sustained as the result of the voluntary attempt on the part of Mrs. Tocci to take her own life. This instruction was refused by the trial court and this is one of the principal questions raised on appeal.

The evidence presented by the plaintiffs showed that Mrs. Tocci’s childhood was emotionally deprived, her mother and father delegating her rearing to an aunt. She has never had any contact with her father and never saw her mother between the time she was one and a half years of age until approximately her sixteenth birthday. She married at twenty-one years of age. After her marriage, her husband went into the military service as a public relations officer for the Air Force. After serving in various air force bases in this country, Lt. Tocci was transferred to an air force base in Japan, where his wife and family joined him. During the course of the marriage and prior to the accident in question there were six children born to the marriage. In Japan, there were several servants to help with household tasks and a Japanese girl was employed to direct the household operations. While in Japan, Mrs. Tocci was hospitalized three times for anxiety or depressive reactions. The last of these hospitalizations, on November 10, 1958, was the result of a suicide gesture or attempt by Mrs. Tocci, in the form of the taking of an overdose of phenobarbital. In August of 1959, Lt. Tocci was transferred to the Air Force Base at Tucson, Arizona. Sometime later, the Japanese girl who had been in charge . of the household in Japan joined the Tocci family, not as an employee, but as a friend to live in the home. Mrs. Tocci attended the University of Arizona on a part-time basis, taking classes in accounting. This was the situation at the time of the accident on July 17, 1962.

After the accident Mrs. Tocci began to feel deeply depressed. The primary cause of her depression, as described by Mrs. Tocci, was the fact that the Japanese girl took over the management of the home while she was convalescing, and the Japanese girl was able to perform the normal household tasks so efficiently that Mrs. Tocci began to feel “useless.” The following quotation from the record illustrates her testimony in this regard:

“Q Did you get better or did you get worse as time went on ?
“A The aches and pains got better, but I started feeling worse and worse inside myself, in my—you can call it heart, you can call it the head, whatever you want to, but I was feeling worse.
“Q Day by day?
“A The more that I saw Caisson [the nickname used by the Toccis for the Japanese girl] performing my job so efficiently, so well, when I would see her directing the children, children need direction, and she would tell them what to do, they would do it without argument. I would tell them, oh, sometimes they’d do it, but —in fact they always ended up doing it, but usually I had to reach the stage where I’m hollering, then I got results. She was doing this job well, and seemingly without—without strain, without effort, and here is a job that I should be doing.
“I never did it well, but I should be doing it, and here she is doing it so—
* * íjc % * #
“Q Did you have any inclination or did you not have inclination that this was coming ?
“A I had an inclination. The more useless—pardon me. The more that I saw Caisson doing my job so well, the more *333 useless I felt. It was obvious, I mean nobody saw me. The bus company didr/t see me, but nobody saw me. I was obviously unnecessary, I had—shall we say it was a—it hurt my self respect, is that okay? The word is felt, I felt like I’m not needed, I should—how smoothly the house runs without me.”

The plaintiff testified as to her attempt at suicide of August 18 as follows:

“A * * * I went home and I had in my possession a large bottle of phenobarbital that had been prescribed for a different ailment, for a physical ailment, and I went home, I figured that was my last chance for help.
“I mean I had gone and I had gotten the week-end of rest and calm and peace and actual help, that’s what I had been doing at home, resting. So I went home and the children were outside, my husband left. He picked me up, brought me home and he left for the University, he had classes to teach, he had a job to do.
“Caisson was home with the children, the children were outside playing, those that were at the walking stage, they were outside playing and we were friendly, I say we, I mean Caisson and myself, we were friendly with our next door neighbors, and customarily either they would come to our house for coffee in the morning or we would go to their house.
“It was—that’s the way housewives operate, I guess, I don’t know. But Caisson went next door for a coffee break, she already had the house looking just fine, she went next door for a coffee break and that was my chance. I went in the kitchen where the pills were and got them down off the shelf and I don’t know if I took the whole bottle or not, but the exact dosage, I knew at the time, I was able to— to know at the time what I was taking, but I knew that I was taking sufficient to kill myself.”

In October of 1962, the plaintiff was re-hospitalized for a few days because of a resurgence of suicidal ideation which was related to the fact that Caisson left the Tocci home.

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Bluebook (online)
414 P.2d 179, 3 Ariz. App. 330, 1966 Ariz. App. LEXIS 617, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tucson-rapid-transit-co-v-tocci-arizctapp-1966.