## Facts

- Chauncy G. Jones was injured in a collision between his pickup truck and a car driven by Frank B. Follett.
- Jones sustained broken ribs, contusions, abrasions, and a head injury, was hospitalized, and died 17 days later.
- Jones had been working regularly before the accident but had an undiagnosed terminal lung cancer discovered during post-accident medical evaluation; the autopsy listed cancer as the cause of death.
- Two physicians testified that the accident injuries hastened Jones’s death and that death resulted from a combination of trauma and cancer, while conceding Jones would eventually have died from cancer absent the accident.
- A jury found Follett negligent and found his negligence to be the proximate cause of Jones’s death, awarding damages to Jones’s estate and widow, and none to Jones’s son.
- Follett appealed, challenging causation and arguing damages were speculative due to отсутствence of proof of how much the accident shortened Jones’s life.

## Issues

1. Whether expert testimony that accident injuries hastened death, in combination with terminal cancer, was sufficient to submit proximate cause to the jury.
2. Whether wrongful-death damages were impermissibly speculative absent evidence of the period by which the accident shortened the decedent’s life expectancy.
3. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by limiting proof and excluding a late-developed aggravation-of-preexisting-condition theory not squarely raised in the pleadings.

## Decision

- The court held the medical testimony that the injuries hastened death was sufficient to create a jury question on proximate cause; denial of a directed verdict on causation was proper.
- The court held the damages award could not stand because the record contained no evidence of Jones’s normal life expectancy or the amount of time by which the accident shortened his life.
- The court found no prejudicial error in excluding testimony aimed at reframing the case as aggravation of a preexisting condition where the issue was not properly presented procedurally.
- The judgment was reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant may be liable for wrongful death where negligence contributes to or hastens death, even if the decedent had a preexisting terminal condition, when supported by competent medical testimony.
- When the decedent would have died from an underlying disease absent the tort, the plaintiff must present evidence permitting a non-speculative estimate of the extent to which the tort shortened life expectancy for purposes of wrongful-death damages.
- Wrongful-death awards for future pecuniary loss cannot rest on conjecture; proof must supply a basis to measure the duration of the accelerated death.
- Trial courts may limit proof to issues framed by the pleadings; absent procedural steps such as amendment, surprise, or continuance, exclusion of a newly asserted aggravation theory is not reversible error.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the jury to decide whether the collision hastened a cancer-stricken decedent’s death, but reversed the wrongful-death judgment because the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence from which a jury could determine how much the accident shortened the decedent’s life, requiring a new trial on damages.


Follett v. Jones, 252 Ark. 950, 481 S.W.2d 713 (Ark. 1972)