Title: Dumas v. Dumas Bros. Manufacturing Co., Inc.

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

330 So. 2d 426 (1976)
Samuel T. DUMAS, Jr., d/b/a Samuel Dumas Construction Co.
v.
DUMAS BROS. MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC., a corp.
SC 1379.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
April 2, 1976.
*427 Hill, Hill, Carter, Franco, Cole & Black, and John M. Milling, Jr., Miller & Hoffman and H. E. Nix, Jr., Montgomery, Lee B. Williams, Grove Hill, for appellant.
Brown, Hudgens & Richardson, Alton R. Brown, Jr., Claude D. Harrell, Mobile, Wyman O. Gilmore, Grove Hill, for appellee.
EMBRY, Justice.
This appeal is from judgment on jury verdict for $234,000 in favor of plaintiff Dumas Brothers Manufacturing Company, Inc. (Dumas Brothers) and against defendant Samuel T. Dumas, Jr., d/b/a Samuel Dumas Construction Company (Dumas).
We affirm.
The action for damages arose from destruction by fire of a building and its contents of furniture products, raw materials, supplies and equipment, all incident to plaintiff's furniture manufacturing business.
By its last amended complaint Dumas Brothers asserted the right to recover of Dumas for breach of duties arising from the relationship of the parties under an oral agreement whereby Dumas undertook construction of additions to premises of Dumas Brothers.
The breach of those duties was said to consist of negligence in causing the destructive fire by: (1) failing to warn a workman of the presence of highly flammable material at a place where defendant knew or should have known it to be and causing or permitting that workman to use a burning torch (to burn or cut metal) in close proximity to that material. (2) Defendant Dumas using or causing the torch to be used at the same place after defendant Dumas had been warned by plaintiff Dumas Brothers against such use.
Issue was joined by answer. It was a denial (general issue) of the material allegations of the complaint and alleged contributory negligence upon the part of Dumas Brothers.
Dumas filed Motion for Directed Verdict on conclusion of the evidence. It was denied. Following verdict he filed Motion For Judgment Notwithstanding The Verdict, or in the alternative, Motion For New Trial. After a hearing of the latter motion, at which evidence was taken, the motion was denied. This appeal ensued.
Defendant Dumas entered into an oral agreement with plaintiff Dumas Brothers to make additions to a warehouse owned by the latter. Dumas was aware of the nature of the business (manufacture of furniture) engaged in by Dumas Brothers, the highly flammable nature of foam rubber used in that business and that such was stored in the warehouse to which he was making additions. Under the terms of the rather loosely defined oral agreement it appears there was an understanding that from time to time during construction Dumas could call upon Dumas Brothers for help from its employees, if needed, although any such employee would remain in the pay of Dumas Brothers.
The fire, the vortex of controversy in this case, originated in the ceiling of a building to which an addition was being constructed. Its cause was sparks falling from the site of a cut being made in metal by use of a cutting torch. Those sparks fell upon highly flammable foam rubber stored in the existing building. The torch was being used at the time by Jimmy *428 Bayles who was on the payroll of Dumas Brothers. Dumas was there doing the cutting at the particular spot using a cutting torch under the following circumstances. When Dumas had embarked upon the job he was told by Dumas Brothers that it had a qualified welder and burner and that anytime he needed one to send and get him, not to hire one. Before the time at which the fire started Dumas had been told by Dumas Brothers not to use a cutting torch or cutting tool to cut the metal beams near the foam rubber.
Bayles had been sent to Dumas for the purpose of cutting with a torch upon Dumas' request for "* * * a man with a torch to do some burning." Dumas did not inform Dumas Brothers of the location of the spot where the "burning" was to be done  on the beam adjacent to where the foam rubber was stored in the warehouse. Dumas Brothers was not otherwise informed that such "burning" or cutting was to be at that spot. Dumas instructed Bayles where to cut. Dumas then left the situs of the cutting and was not present when the fire started. The facts recited in the foregoing summary were adduced from sharply conflicting evidence in the record about which there is heated disagreement expressed by the parties in their respective briefs.
The assignments of error present for review these issues: (A) On a hearing of the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or in the alternative for new trial, was it error to exclude an affidavit and testimony of a juror offered to impeach the verdict? (B) Did the giving of certain written jury instructions at the instance of Dumas Brothers injuriously affect the substantial rights of Dumas? (C) Did prejudicial error result from the failure of the trial court to hear and record the testimony of a juror offered to impeach the verdict?
There were other errors assigned but not urged, therefore we will not deal with them.
On hearing of his motion for judgment n. o. v. or in the alternative for a new trial, Dumas offered the affidavit of a juror. In pertinent part it reads:
The law and public policy alike declare that affidavits of jurors with respect to occurrences in the jury room may not be received for the purpose of impeaching their own verdict. Weekley v. Horn, 263 Ala. 364, 82 So. 2d 341. The basis for the rule is expressed in Gulf States Steel Co. *429 v. Law, 224 Ala. 667, 141 So. 641, as follows:
quoting from Weekley v. Horn, supra.
Dumas contends the trial court erred in not accepting the juror's affidavit and testimony which exposed jury discussions during its deliberation. He says the case falls within an exception to the general rule. The exception is where the affidavit tends to show the extraneous facts which have influenced the verdict. Improper communications between jurors themselves are not extraneous influences or extraneous facts. Weekley v. Horn, supra. Dumas contends that the content of the affidavit here stating the jury failed to discuss the facts in evidence compels by inference the conclusion that what it discussed was necessarily extraneous facts. We cannot agree with this.
The affidavit offered revealed merely what was discussed during jury deliberation; liability insurance coverage. The affidavit was properly excluded. It only divulged the nature and content of the jury's deliberation. That, without regard to its propriety or lack of it, is not extraneous.
The written jury instructions given at the request of Dumas Brothers about which Dumas complains are:
Dumas claims that each of the charges are incurable misstatements of the law misdefining the "loaned servant" doctrine. In support he cites Lucas v. Kirk, 275 Ala. 20, 151 So. 2d 744. On request of Dumas the following written charges were given:
*432 Number Fourteen (14)
In the court's oral charge we find:
The specific omissions which result in written charges of Dumas Brothers being incurable erroneous statements of law, according to Dumas, is the failure to qualify the word "control" by the words "reserved right of" and the failure to include the word "consensual" in describing the necessary consent, agreement or acquiescence of Bayles to be a "loaned servant" of Samuel Dumas. Admittedly these charges may not be the most carefully drafted, complete and precise statements of the factors to be considered by the jury in deciding whether, on the occasion, Bayles was a "loaned servant" of Dumas. On the other hand when one looks at the totality of the instructions by which the jury was guided in its resolution of this issue then the claimed defects in them assume Lilliputian proportions. Lucas is not apt, rather is Rule 51, ARCP. Taylor v. Owen, 294 Ala. 543, 319 So. 2d 672." The totality of the jury instruction, oral and written was legally sufficient and the evidence adequate to authorize the jury to conclude that Bayles was the "loaned servant" of Dumas. The ultimate test is whose work was the servant doing at the time the complained of act was committed and under whose control was he doing it? Martin v. Anniston Foundry Co., 259 Ala. 633, 68 So. 2d 323.
Plaintiff's and defendant's given requested charges taken together and in conjunction with the whole of the court's oral charge does not, therefore, constitute reversible error. Error, if any, is error without injury since the charges viewed as an entity did not injuriously affect the substantial rights of Dumas. ARAP 45.
Dumas contends the trial court erred in not hearing and recording the testimony of a juror offered to impeach the verdict. He relies on Rule 43(c), ARCP in that part:
*433 This gives Dumas the opportunity to place in the record what he was not allowed to adduce at the hearing of the post judgment motion unless "* * * it clearly appears that the evidence is not admissible on any ground * * *."
The court allowed Dumas to make a showing of what he expected to prove by the juror's testimony. After making that offer by reading the affidavit, counsel for Dumas asked the juror:
Dumas Brothers immediately objected and the court correctly sustained that objection. Such testimony is clearly not admissible on any ground. Weekley v. Horn, supra.
AFFIRMED.
HEFLIN, C.J., and BLOODWORTH, FAULKNER and ALMON, JJ., concur.