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Day v. Ouachita Parish School Board8/8/2002
ing
I must respectfully dissent on the additional award for loss of enjoyment of life, as affirmed by the majority. Under the facts of this case, and in the specific holding of the trial court in its lengthy written reasons for judgment, any award for loss of enjoyment of life, sometimes referred to as "hedonic damages," was necessarily subsumed in the very generous general damage award. In assessing the general damage award, the trial court specifically referred to the plaintiff's injuries as having changed his life dramatically and that his injuries would significantly impact the plaintiff for the rest of his life. The jurisprudence has long defined "general damages" as those which may not be fixed with any degree of pecuniary exactitude, but which involve mental or physical pain or suffering, inconvenience, loss of gratification or intellectual or physical enjoyment, or other losses of lifestyle which cannot be measured definitively in terms of money. Boswell v. Roy O. Martin Lumber Co., 363 So. 2d 506 (La. 1978); Anderson v. Bennett Wood Fabricators, 571 So. 2d 780 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1990), writ denied, 573 So. 2d 1135 (La. 1991); Foster v. Trafalgar House Oil & Gas, 603 So. 2d 284 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1992). This court specifically stated in Foster, "Thus, hedonic damages are included in `general damages.' " Justice Jeffrey P. Victory, in his assigned reasons in Joseph v. Broussard Rice Mill, Inc., 2000-0628 (La. 10/30/00), 772 So. 2d 94, 107, stated that "[the Louisiana Supreme] Court has never squarely addressed the issue of awarding hedonic damages for loss of enjoyment of life as a separate element of damages. . . ." The injury to plaintiff here is not so severe as to merit a separate award for so-called loss of enjoyment of life, particularly when that very aspect was included in the award for general damages.a
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