Kingman, et al. v. Dillards, Inc., No. 12-1075 (8th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseAfter the district court awarded plaintiff and her husband damages for an injury she sustained as a result of a clothing rack breaking free from a wall at Dillard's department store and striking her in the shoulder, Dillard's appealed. The court affirmed plaintiff's award but vacated the husband's loss of consortium award. On remand, the district court reduced the husband's award. Both parties subsequently appealed. The court concluded that the "heavy lifting and adjustment" that plaintiff performed in order to help her husband, who is a quadriplegic, before her shoulder injury was encompassed by the notion of consortium under Missouri law; there was sufficient evidence in the record to support the specific award amount; and, although the district court did not employ any mathematical analysis to arrive at its new consortium award amount, the court did not believe that a seventy-five percent reduction in the award based on the limited services that plaintiff could no longer perform was clearly erroneous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Civil case - Torts. For the court's prior opinion in the case see Kingman v. Dillards, Inc., 643 F.3d 607 (8th Cir. 2011). The "heavy lifting and adjustment" Paula Kingman provided her husband Calvin is within the realm of services encompassed by the notion of consortium under Missouri law; the consortium award was supported by the evidence and was not inconsistent with this court's prior opinion or in conflict with Missouri law regarding the proportionality between an injured party's award and their spouse's consortium award.
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