Powers, Appellant v. Allstate Insurance Company and Others, Respondents

Summary

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that credible medical evidence — objective findings of leg atrophy and knee clicking plus both physicians' opinions — supported the jury's finding of permanent knee disability, but that the $5,000 awarded for that permanent injury was excessive, fixing $3,000 as a reasonable sum. Adopting the alternative urged in Justice Fairchild's Gennrich dissent, the court announced that where an excessive verdict is not the product of perversity, prejudice, or trial error, the plaintiff may be given the option of remitting the excess over a court-determined reasonable amount or of having a new trial on damages alone, and held that this remittitur practice does not violate the Wisconsin constitutional right to jury trial, expressly overruling Heimlich v. Tabor and Campbell v. Sutliff to the contrary. The judgment was modified to increase the plaintiff's recovery from $1,500 to $4,500 unless she elects a new trial limited to the issue of damages.