Title: Estis Trucking Co., Inc. v. Hammond
Citation: 387 So. 2d 768
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: August 8, 1980

387 So. 2d 768 (1980)
ESTIS TRUCKING COMPANY, INC., a corp., et al.
v.
Gordon HAMMOND et al.
78-672.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
August 8, 1980.
Rehearing Denied September 19, 1980.
Bert P. Taylor of McDaniel, Hall, Parsons &amp; Conerly, Birmingham, for appellants.
Watson, Moore &amp; Chestnut, Huntsville, and J. C. Kellett of Kellett &amp; Gillis, Fort Payne, for appellees.
FAULKNER, Justice.
This case arose out of an automobile-truck accident which occurred in DeKalb County on July 26, 1976, near an intersection *769 of Alabama Highway 75 and DeKalb County Highway 72. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs. Defendants' motion for new trial was denied. We reverse.
Frankie Langley, employed by Estis Trucking Company, Inc., was driving a coal truck north on Alabama Highway 75. Langley was following Gary Lowe, a plaintiffs' witness at trial. At the trial, Lowe testified that he saw the coal truck in his rearview mirror and that it followed him for several miles. After cresting a hill, Lowe approached the intersection of Alabama Highway 75 and DeKalb County Highway 72, approximately 300 yards below the crest of the hill. He switched on his turn indicator and began slowing to negotiate a turn onto the county highway. Lowe testified that as the coal truck topped the crest of the hill behind him, it increased speed.
Lowe testified that Langley put on his breaks to avoid striking him and crossed lanes; Marie Hammond, traveling in the opposite direction, collided with the truck. She and her husband brought suit against Langley and Estis Trucking Company, Inc., claiming damages of $500,000.00. The case was tried and a jury verdict was returned in favor of both plaintiffs and against both defendants for $200,000.00.
Defendants contend that the trial judge committed numerous errors. We pretermit discussion of all alleged errors except the following: Did the trial court err in denying defendants' motion for new trial based upon alleged improper comments during the course of trial and based upon alleged improper closing argument by plaintiffs' counsel. We hold that the trial court did so err and we reverse and remand for a new trial.
During the course of trial, following redirect examination of Mrs. Hammond, the following discussion occurred, viz:
MR. WATSON: Your Honor, we are going to have a few witnesses here on the before and after condition of this lady, and I have discussed it with Mrs. Hammond, and with the witnesses, and I would like to ask that she be excused for this testimony, if I may, regarding her condition. I think the testimony would be more truthful if she were excused, and I think it might save her some embarrassment.
MR. LIVINGSTON: We would like to object to those remarks by counsel, and move that this jury be instructed to disregard the remarks of counsel, that they are designed solely for the purpose of prejudicing the defendant, and solely for the purpose of injecting testimony into the record, and I think it is so prejudicial that I believe we will move for a mistrial at this point. I don't believe statements like that have anything to do with the issues in this case.
MR. LIVINGSTON: Well, it ought not to be said, period. It hasn't got anything to do with the trial of this case. We didn't bring this lawsuit, Mrs. Hammond is the one who brought the lawsuit.
MR. WATSON: Well, if the court please, we believe the testimony so far has been justified in her bringing the suit, and I don't think there has been anything said here to indicate that she shouldn't have brought it.
MR. LIVINGSTON: I would like very much for the jury to be excluded while these speeches are being made, and while he is injecting all of this into the record, and I would like to renew my motion.
COURT: Those remarks were directed to me. I know you heard it, but don't consider it in your deliberations at all. Did you object to her being ....
MR. LIVINGSTON: No, sir. She doesn't have to stay as far as we are concerned. It's her case.
LIVINGSTON: I objected to the statement, and that is the basis for our motion for a mistrial, and we would like to have a ruling on that.
*770 COURT: All right. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the statements that the counsel made, they were made to me, and they are not part of the evidence that you will consider in making up your minds in arriving at a decision. So, you don't consider those statements that you heard, if you heard them, and overrule the motion for a mistrial. Mrs. Hammond, will you come and go with the bailiff.
These comments on the evidence made by plaintiffs' attorney were prejudicial to defendants, were statements not in evidence, and were, therefore, improper. But, as can be seen from a reading of the transcript, the trial court made a curative instruction to the jurors, instructing them to ignore any comments made by the attorneys. Since the curative instruction was given, we cannot say that the trial court erred in denying defendants' motion for new trial based solely upon the improper comments made by plaintiffs' attorney.
After both sides had rested their cases, plaintiffs' attorney made the following statements in closing argument to the jury, viz:
[At a point when Mr. Watson was arguing the case to the Jury on behalf of the Plaintiffs]
[At another point while Mr. Watson was arguing to the Jury]
[At another point when Mr. Watson was arguing to the Jury]
[At another point when Mr. Watson was arguing to the Jury]
Defendants contend that this argument was given for the sole purpose of prejudicing defendants, improperly introduced the wealth of defendants to the jury and improperly requested the jurors to place themselves in the position of plaintiff, Mrs. Hammond. Alabama Farm Bureau Mutual Casualty Insurance Co. v. Humphrey, 54 Ala.App. 343, 308 So. 2d 255 (1975), contains a concise, and correct, statement of the law in Alabama regarding closing argument.
We have carefully considered the evidence, the record of the argument, and the corrective actions of the court. We note that the trial court did not instruct the jury that the argument was improper. After consideration of these factors, we hold that the argument was improper and highly prejudicial and its influence was not eradicated from the mind of the jury by the admonition of the trial court in this case.
In Allison v. Acton-Etheridge Coal Co., Inc., 289 Ala. 443, 268 So. 2d 725 (1972), this Court reversed a jury verdict returned for the defendants because of improper statements made during closing argument, viz:
MR. NORMAN [attorney for defendant]: * * *
It's a great thing, folks, to be a very wealthy man and to be able to go out here and hire two law firms with four lawyers
MR. HARE: We object to that.
THE COURT: I sustain the objection. Ladies and Gentlemen, I will say now that arguments of counsel is not evidence in this case. You are going to be called upon to decide this case from the facts that you hear from the witness stand, so don't consider-of course, that is not evidence, and I sustain your objection to that type argument.
MR. HARE: You told them not to consider it evidence. I ask to charge them as improper argument.
THE COURT: I am going to say-I am asking him not to argue that anymore along those lines. Now go ahead.
In his oral charge to the jury the court made the following statement to the jury:
It is to be noted that the above instruction in no wise refers to the impropriety of defendant's counsel's reference to the plaintiff as a very wealthy man.
"* * * When an attorney in the heat of debate, goes to such extraordinary lengths, generally, the court should promptly set aside any verdict that may be rendered for his client. The repressive powers of a court, to prevent such departures from legitimate argument of a cause before a jury, should be vigorously applied. No mere statement that it is out of order or improper can meet the exigencies of the case." [Quoting from Alabama Fuel &amp; Iron Co. v. Benante, 11 Ala.App. 644, 66 So. 942 (1942).]
While the above case [Pearson v. Birmingham Transit Co., 264 Ala. 350, 87 So. 2d 857 (1956)], dealt with the poisonous effect of injecting insurance into argument rather than an opponent's wealth, we can discern *773 little difference between a reference to an opponent's protection by insurance, and a reference to his wealth. The issues of liability for damages, or entitlement to damages, must validly be determined by the rules of legal liability applicable, and not upon the economic condition of either party, or the degree of burden that might result from a verdict or judgment.
But our conclusions need not rest upon the analogy of the poisonous effect of a reference to insurance to that of wealth of an opponent, for in Pryor v. Limestone Co., 225 Ala. 540, 144 So. 18, this court condemned as ineradicably prejudicial a reference in argument to an opponent's wealth.
It must be remembered that in the present case the court at no time instructed the jury that the argument made by defense counsel was improper, but after sustaining the objection merely told the jury that argument of counsel was not evidence in the case, and upon counsel for the plaintiff requesting instructions that the argument was improper only replied: "I am asking him not to argue that anymore along those lines. Now go ahead."
Nor can the rather general instructions in his oral charge that remarks of counsel were not evidence, and that the jury was not to decide the case upon sympathy for anyone, or prejudice against anyone be deemed to have eradicated the error of the argument since under our cases we think the argument must be deemed ineradicable. [Emphasis added.] 289 Ala. at 446-448, 308 So. 2d  at 727.
Plaintiffs' attorney in the instant case stated that in his opinion defendants "could have afforded . . .," whereupon defendants' attorney objected to the statement and moved for a mistrial. It is clear to us from the argument made previous to this statement that the language used by plaintiffs' attorney was a reference to the wealth, or supposed wealth, of defendants, to the effect that defendants could have afforded a better photograph than the one they used at trial, and was, therefore, improper. Moreover, plaintiffs' attorney stated that defendants' attorney tried lawsuits "all over the State of Alabama" for $500,000.00. This language implies that defendants' attorney tries only expensive lawsuits, that the damages in this instant lawsuit must have been perceived by defendants to be potentially large or they would not have hired such an expensive attorney, and that defendants must be wealthy to afford an attorney who tries only $500,000 lawsuits. This argument is also improper as it reflects upon the defendants' wealth.
We find that the cumulative effect of these two statements, coupled with the previously noted comments on the evidence made by plaintiffs' attorney during the course of trial, was so poisonous and so prejudicial to defendants in this case that the argument was ineradicable, notwithstanding the trial court's instruction to the jury. Blue v. State, 246 Ala. 73, 19 So. 2d 11 (1944). Although the cumulative error doctrine announced in Blue was there applied in a criminal case, it is equally applicable in civil cases. Birmingham Baptist Hospital v. Blackwell, 221 Ala. 225, 128 So. 389 (1930). The fact that plaintiffs' attorney retracted the statements after defendants' attorney objected to them is of no consequence. A retraction of the argument in no way eradicates the effect of the improper argument on the minds of the jurors. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Carter, 212 Ala. 212, 102 So. 130 (1924).
The last statement made in closing argument by plaintiffs' attorney to the effect that "if somebody told you that you were going to go through that wreck," etc., was equally prejudicial. In Hayles v. Jeter, 279 Ala. 283, 184 So. 2d 363 (1966), this Court held that similar argument, given the context in which the argument was presented to the Court, was not reversible error. In Hayles, plaintiff's counsel, in his closing argument to the jury stated, "I ask you, gentlemen, to put yourself in the Plaintiff's place . . .," whereupon defendant's attorney immediately objected. The Court, in addressing whether this bare invitation to the jury was reversible error, stated, viz:
Likewise, in British General Insurance Co. v. Simpson Sales Co., 265 Ala. 683, 93 So. 2d 763 (1957), this Court held that there had not been a showing of injury requiring reversal when plaintiff's counsel, in closing argument, asked the jury, "How would you like to have that happen to you?" In British General the main issue was whether plaintiff was insured, plaintiff's counsel contending that plaintiff was led by the insurance agent to believe that he was covered, and asking, in argument, for the jurors to determine whether they would have believed they were covered if the same thing had happened to them.
However, the argument in the instant case goes beyond the argument alleged to be improper in Hayles and British General. In the instant case, there was not merely a bare invitation for the jurors to put themselves in the place of the plaintiff. There was more. The argument here presented was an appeal to the jurors' feelings and passion, tantamount to requesting the jurors to hold in favor of the plaintiffs based upon the jurors' sympathy for Mrs. Hammond. A jury verdict reached in favor of any party on the basis of bias, prejudice or sympathy must be set aside.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C. J., and MADDOX, JONES, EMBRY and BEATTY, JJ., concur.
SHORES, J., dissents.
BLOODWORTH and ALMON, JJ., not sitting.
SHORES, Justice (dissenting):
I dissent. Even if the argument were improper, it was clearly not ineradicable.