Bullard v. Barnes

468 N.E.2d 1228 (1984)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

As a result of a motor vehicle accident, 17-year-old Scott Bullard was fatally injured. Barnes (D), who was driving a semitrailer truck for Livingston County Ready-Mix, Inc. (D), despite fog and poor visibility, moved into the southbound lane and proceeded to pass [two vehicles. He passed the vehicle directly in front of him, a station wagon driven by Graves, and then continued traveling in the southbound lane past a truck loaded with road-building materials driven by Bohm. Bohm and Graves both testified that the approaching Bullard car swerved onto the west shoulder of the road to avoid a collision with D. Scott lost control and suddenly swung back on the road to avoid hitting a culvert. The car then crossed the road in front of the truck Bohm was driving, and the front of the Bohm truck struck the passenger side of the Bullard car. Both Bohm and Graves stopped at the accident scene. Barnes (D) did not. Scott was taken to a Pontiac hospital, where he died that morning without regaining consciousness. Ps sued in part under wrongful death. The court instructed the jury on a presumption that the parents suffered a pecuniary loss upon Scott's death. The verdicts were $285,000 in the wrongful death action and $40,000 in the survival action. The appellate court held that the jurors had been improperly instructed that they could consider the parents' loss of their son's society as an element of the presumption prevailing under the Wrongful Death Act that the parents suffered a pecuniary loss due to his death. Ps appealed.