Eighteen thousand dollars is excessive for injury to a brakeman which almost wholly unfits him for business where interest thereon at the legal rate would amount to $1,800, which is three times as much as he would have earned in his business.'

Fifteen thousand dollars was reduced to $2,000 where the injury was to the hand of a person earning $60 a month and about the age of forty-three, and the usefulness of the hand was not entirely destroyed.'

Fifteen thousand dollars was reduced to $5,000 where the injury was to a woman fifty-three years old and probably crippled her for life owing to injury to the spinal cord, causing intermittent suffering and an inability to walk. A verdict of $15,000 was set aside where the evidence of actual damage did not justify it.*

3

Fourteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-three dollars for injuries to a man twenty-one years old, thus depriving him of the employment from which he realized over $50 per month, was excessive.

Ten thousand dollars for injuries to a man seventy years old, by which he was confined to his house for several months, and which caused a shortening of the leg two inches, was excessive.* Ten thousand dollars is excessive for a compound fracture of a leg.'

Ten thousand dollars in favor of a married woman for pain and suffering resulting from injuries causing nervous prostration and the reappearance of a certain internal inclination from which she had been free for about three years is excessive."

Ten thousand dollars for injuries to a stout healthy woman by which her leg was broken, her arm dislocated, her back, shoulder and side injured so that she had not recovered and was able to do little work at the end of two years, and was unable to walk for four months after the accident, was reduced to $5,000.

1Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Jackson, 55 Ill. 497.

Bomar v. Louisiana, N. & S. R. Co. 42 La. Ann. 983.

Furnish v. Missouri Pac. R. Co. 102 Mo. 438.

International & G. N. R. Co. v. Underwood, 64 Tex. 465.

Southwestern R. Co. v. Singleton, 66 Ga. 252.

•Chicago West. Div. R. Co. v. Haviland, 12 Ill. App. 561.

Union Pac. R. Co. v. Hause, 1 Wyo. Ter. 27.

*Lockwood v. Twenty-Third St. R. Co. 15 Daly, 374.

Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Texas Pac. R. Co. 41 Fed. Rep. 311.

Ten thousand dollars is excessive where the proof shows that defendant's negligence was but slight and plaintiff's was greater.'

Ten thousand dollars is excessive for injuries to a brakeman, which resulted in the amputation of his leg about ten inches below the knee, where there was no evidence as to what he was earning at the time of the injury or what he had paid or had contracted to pay out by reason of the injury, or that he lost any time, or that his ability to earn money was impaired.'

Ten thousand dollars for compensatory and punitive damages is excessive although the injuries were caused by gross negligence and are serious causing several months' confinement, a severe nervous shock, and partial paralysis of one leg, where it is not clearly shown that the injuries are permanent.'

Eight thousand dollars was held excessive and reduced to $6,000 for loss of a hand by a cooper who was at the time of the accident employed as a teamster where his own negligence contributed to the injury and there was little evidence of his former or present capacity for labor, and none as to the amount of his ordinary earnings. Nine thousand two hundred and fifty dollars was held excessive for injuries to an engineer which resulted in concussion of the spinal cord producing a diseased condition of the nervous system where he was most of the time free from pain and able to engage in business, though not as an engineer. Seven thousand five hundred dollars was reduced to $4,500 where the injuries resulted in the loss of a leg by a negro who would probably earn $200 a year and was twenty-four years of age.*

Six thousand six hundred dollars was reduced to $3,000 for the fracture of the arm of a child five years old which remained permanently disfigured.' Six thousand five hundred dollars for the loss of a thumb and forefinger is excessive. Six thousand dollars for injuries so a woman not permanent in their nature, which de

3

'Central R. Co. v. Smith, 76 Ga. 209.

Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Dwyer, 36 Kan. 58.

Louisville S. R. Co. v. Minogue (Ky.) 12 Ky. L. Rep. 378.

*Murray v. Hudson River R. Co. 47 Barb. 196.

Sioux City & P. R. Co. v. Finlayson, 16 Neb. 578, 49 Am. Rep. 724.

Lampkins v. Vicksburg, S. & P. R. Co. 42 La. Ann. 997.

"Ryder v. New York, 18 Jones & S. 220.

Kansas Pac. R. Co. v. Peavey, 34 Kan. 472.

2

prived her temporarily of the opportunity of earning $9 a week, is excessive where no reasonable estimate of the pain and suffering could justify it. Six thousand dollars for injuries to a common laborer employed in digging clay, which permitted him to resume lighter work in a short time and to continue it at intervals, although suffering from the hurt, is excessive. Six thousand dollars was held excessive and reduced to $4,000 where a passenger on a railroad had his leg broken and received some flesh wounds in the head and was restored to sound health after ten months, the only permanent result being that one leg was somewhat shorter than the other.'

4

Five thousand dollars is excessive where the injury was a temporary loss of the sight of one eye. Five thousand dollars was reduced to $3,000 where the injury was caused by falling into an excavation and consisted of a laceration of the right arm whereby the hand became somewhat smaller and flexed the wrist joint, the circulation being impaired and a slight use of the hand being possible, and the evidence showed that the hand and arm might be restored to a great extent. Four thousand five hundred dollars is excessive for injuries resulting in the fracture of an arm where the only evidence of permanence of the injury is the testimony of plaintiff and a fellow laborer that he could not do the work of an able-bodied man in his occupation as grain stower in an elevator. * Four thousand dollars is excessive for a mere broken leg where the fracture had perfectly united and would never again cause trouble. ' Three thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars in favor of a seaman who fell through an open hatchway was reduced to $1,200, where although seriously wounded he was discharged from the hospital in three months with his wounds healed; although four years later he swore that he still felt the effects of his fall but was uncorroborated by his own medical experts, and

'Langley v. Sixth Ave. R. Co. 16 Jones & S. 542.

'Chicago Anderson P. B. Co. v. Sobkowiak, 34 Ill. App. 312,

'Orleans v. Perry, 24 Neb. 831.

'Chicago West. Div. R. Co. v. Hughes, 87 Ill. 94.

"South Covington & C. St. R. Co. v. Ware, 84 Ky. 267.

it was shown that he exhibited no signs of existing or permanent injury.'

A verdict for $25,000 is excessive in an action for personal injuries by which a railroad conductor thirty years old was badly burned about the face so as to disfigure him for life and also lost the use of his left arm besides receiving some injury to his right

hand and both feet."

'The Grecian Monarch, 32 Fed. Rep. 635.

'Standard Oil Co. v. Tierney (Ky.) 14 L. R. A. 677.

APPENDIX.

A.

The following opinion by the Solicitor General of the United States, and approved by the Attorney General, is published as a supplement to § 89.

"DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 1892. (

"The President:

"SIR-By your telegram of yesterday, you ask for an opinion as to the extent of the Marine Hospital service, and of the power of the Secretary of the Treasury, with your approval, to make quarantine regulations with reference to immigration from infected ports.

"In answer I have to say that every government is under obligation to take necessary measures to preserve the life and property of its citizens, not only from foreign invasion, but to adopt such sanitary measures as are calculated to protect the people from those pestilences which have been found nearly, if not quite, as destructive as war.

"This is but another application of the maxim that self-preservation is the first law of nature, and it may be added of nations.

"The right of the state to enact sanitary measures to protect its citizens is conceded. The right of the United States to do the same must be admitted.

"The maxim Salus populi suprema est lex, is as applicable to the one government as to the other. The powers granted Con. gress in Art. I. § 8 of the Constitution, 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States or any department or officer thereof, offered ample warrant for legislation by Congress upon this subject.'