Title: Louisville and Nashville Railroad Co. v. Phillips

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

310 So. 2d 194 (1975)
LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, a corporation
v.
H. G. PHILLIPS.
SC 572.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 6, 1975.
Rehearing Denied April 10, 1975.
*195 Henry E. Simpson, Birmingham, for appellant.
Rives, Peterson, Pettus, Conway & Burge, Birmingham, for appellee.
EMBRY, Justice.[1]
This is an appeal by defendant Railroad Company from an order of the trial court granting a motion for new trial. We affirm.
The action was by plaintiff employee of defendant Railroad under the provisions of Tit. 45, U.S.C.A., 1, 9 (Federal Safety Appliance Act) and § 51 (Federal Employers' Liability Act); claiming damages for injuries to his right elbow and arm as a result of two incidents occurring on separate occasions.
At the close of the evidence the issues were submitted to the jury and a verdict returned by it in favor of the defendant Railroad. Judgment was entered accordingly.
The facts surrounding the incidents producing the injuries are not necessary to a determination of the issues raised in this case. After judgment, plaintiff employee filed motion for new trial on the ground, among others, that a question to plaintiff by attorney for defendant during cross-examination of plaintiff was so prejudicial to *196 plaintiff and his rights that he did not obtain a fair trial of the action.
The ground as stated in motion of plaintiff for new trial is as follows:
`Was that the fracas with the young lady',
The question presented for review is whether the trial court was justified in its conclusion that a new trial should be granted because of the infection of prejudice into the proceedings to the extent that plaintiff could not and, therefore, did not obtain a fair trial of his case. Defendant Railroad on the other hand urges in substance that prejudice, if any, was not sufficient to have affected the result or, on the other hand, such was eradicable and cured by action of the trial court during trial.
Extensive and exhaustive briefs for both of the parties are directed to the issue presented for review. There is a plethora of citations seeming to support the contentions of each of the parties.
We here quote the penultimate series of questions and answers that apparently moved the trial court to grant the motion for a new trial. These climaxed other occurrences which the trial judge apparently deemed prejudicial to plaintiff.
Other matters appear in the record that are within the ambit of ground eight of plaintiff's motion for new trial. The first of these surfaced on the occasion of the hearing of plaintiff's motion in limine. That motion sought to "head off," as it were, anticipated injection of irrelevant prejudicial evidence into the trial. Specifically it was to preclude introduction by defendant of evidence concerning plaintiff gleaned from records of the Nashville, Tennessee, Police Department that: (a) plaintiff had received a traffic ticket, (b) had been arrested and convicted on two counts of assault and battery and one of disorderly conduct, (c) had suffered a forfeiture of a $50 bond for failing to appear and answer drunk and disorderly conduct charges.
These facts had been developed by defendant on oral deposition of a Sergeant of Police of Nashville. To that deposition there was attached as an exhibit, the entire police record of plaintiff. The assault and battery counts as well as the charge of disorderly conduct arose from an incident with a lady ("Q The young lady that you had the fracas with?") after he suffered the alleged injuries made the basis of his asserted right to recover damages from his employer.
On the hearing of the motion in limine defendant advanced the theory that assault and battery involved physical exertion by plaintiff thus evidencing ability to use his arm at a time when he was claiming to be disabled. In sum, the argument of plaintiff to the contrary was that such light as might gleam on the issue by admitting the evidence would be far outweighed by prejudice to him from revelation that the assault and battery consisted of shoving a woman. It should be noted that the trial court ruled at this point that the police record exhibit would not be admitted and further stated:
and
There followed a long colloquy between counsel for both parties and the court. It concerned what areas of evidence that might be explored regarding the ability of plaintiff to use his right arm, including the assertion by defendant that long continued shooting of craps could cause bursitis in the elbow. It was not disputed that, except for two very brief intervals, plaintiff had worked regularly for defendant since the occurrence of the latter of the two accidents made the basis of his claim against defendant. During the course of those proceedings in chambers the trial court, we *198 think, made it abundantly clear to delineate those subjects of inquiry which he thought should be subject to in-chambers conference before counsel for defendant proceeded to develop them. Persistently during the trial, counsel eased into the forbidden subjects without seeking guidance of the court by in-chambers conference.
Thus we are presented with the necessity of determining whether the trial court properly exercised his discretion to grant a new trial to correct the jury verdict which he felt to have resulted from prejudicial, improper, extraneous influences finding their way into the jury box.
The principle to be followed in making the determination of the correctness of the trial court's action in ordering a new trial is well stated in Birmingham Baptist Hospital v. Blackwell, 221 Ala. 225, 128 So. 389:
More apt, perhaps, to the facts of the case before us, in light of the proceedings in chambers on the motion in limine, is the quote from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Carter, 212 Ala. 212, 102 So. 130, in Ritchey v. State, 293 Ala. 265, 302 So.2d 83:
Were not the delineations by the trial court made on occasion of the colloquy during hearing of the motion in limine directed to insuring a trial free from prejudicial, improper, extraneous, influences finding their way into the jury box? Did not his granting of the motion for new trial stem from a well founded view that such had found their way into the jury box? We think the answer in both instances is in the affirmative.
The question here presented is not whether the remark "The young lady that you had the fracas with?" was so grossly improper and highly prejudicial that the rights of plaintiff were prejudiced by it alone. Rather, the question is whether this climactical event in a series of deviations from the guidelines previously laid down by the trial court cumulatively tipped the bucket and let those improper, extraneous influences flow into the jury box. We do not think the trial judge abused his discretion in ordering a new trial. Gwin v. Church, 272 Ala. 674, 133 So. 2d 880.
One other point deserves comment. Defendant insists that plaintiff was granted a new trial, without preserving error during the trial by objecting to the quoted remark. It urges that when counsel for plaintiff stated: "There, Judge, there. You can* * * There you go, Judge, and we move for a mistrial if it please the court," and the trial court failed to rule on that motion there was no basis for ordering a new trial. This ignores the proceedings below in this particular case as well as the law. Indeed, just as it is the duty of the trial judge to so conduct the trial as to see that extraneous influences do not find their way into the jury box, likewise it is his duty to correct the result when it is determined by him that such did find their way in and probably influence the *199 verdict. Taylor v. Brownell-O'Hear Pontiac Co., 265 Ala. 468, 91 So. 2d 828.
Much reliance is placed by defendant upon dictum in Alabama Great Southern Railroad Co. v. Gambrell, 262 Ala. 290, 78 So. 2d 619. The language from Gambrell which defendant urges as a statement of one of the standards by which the correctness of the granting of a new trial should be measured is:
We think the test applied in Taylor v. Brownell-O'Hear Pontiac Co., supra, cited by plaintiff, is the one more appropriately applied to the situation presented by the case at bar. There the trial judge had granted a new trial on account of improper argument of counsel in connection with which this court went on to say:
Moreover we quote with approval the language of this court in Johnson v. Hodge, 291 Ala. 142, 143, 279 So.2d 123:
We cannot say the record demonstrates plain and palpable error by the trial court in the exercise of its discretion granting a new trial, discretion wisely left to it. ConAgra, Inc. v. Masterson, 290 Ala. 273, 276 So. 2d 134; State v. Oliver, 288 Ala. 32, 256 So. 2d 866.
*200 For the reasons enunciated the action of the trial court in granting a new trial is hereby affirmed.
Affirmed.
HEFLIN, C. J., and MERRILL, BLOODWORTH, MADDOX, FAULKNER, JONES, ALMON and SHORES, JJ., concur.
[1]  This case was originally assigned to another justice of this court, since retired. It has been reassigned to the writer, not a member of this court at time of submission, who has carefully listened to the tape recordings of oral argument. Code of Ala., Tit. 13, § 7; Alonzo v. State ex rel. Booth, 283 Ala. 607, 219 So. 2d 858.