Task: songer_immunity

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals. You will be asked a question pertaining to some threshold issue at the trial court level. These issues are only considered to be present if the court of appeals is reviewing whether or not the litigants should properly have been allowed to get a trial court decision on the merits. That is, the issue is whether or not the issue crossed properly the threshhold to get on the district court agenda. The issue is: "Did the court refuse to reach the merits of the appeal because it concluded that the defendant had immunity (e.g., the governmental immunity doctrine)?" Answer the question based on the directionality of the appeals court decision. If the court discussed the issue in its opinion and answered the related question in the affirmative, answer "Yes". If the issue was discussed and the opinion answered the question negatively, answer "No". If the opinion considered the question but gave a mixed answer, supporting the respondent in part and supporting the appellant in part, answer "Mixed answer". If the opinion does not discuss the issue, or notes that a particular issue was raised by one of the litigants but the court dismissed the issue as frivolous or trivial or not worthy of discussion for some other reason, answer "Issue not discussed". If the opinion considered the question but gave a "mixed" answer, supporting the respondent in part and supporting the appellant in part (or if two issues treated separately by the court both fell within the area covered by one question and the court answered one question affirmatively and one negatively), answer "Mixed answer". If the opinion either did not consider or discuss the issue at all or if the opinion indicates that this issue was not worthy of consideration by the court of appeals even though it was discussed by the lower court or was raised in one of the briefs, answer "Issue not discussed".

ORDER
COMBS, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from an order of the District Court granting a motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant-appellee in a personal injury action.
The appellant, John Michael Smith, a former employee of the appellee, Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., was awarded workmen’s compensation for an injury sustained in the course of his employment in 1958. That injury was, in the words of appellant’s counsel, “a psycho-physiological-musculo-skeletal reaction.”
During the compensable period for workmen’s compensation, the appellee company employed private detectives to obtain certain information about the appellant, allegedly for use in a further proceeding in the workmen’s compensation case. An altercation occurred between appellant and one of the detectives. This action for personal injuries was instituted following the altercation. It was alleged in the complaint that the company “knew of plaintiff’s neurotic condition and it was expressly designed as a part of its program of harassment of the plaintiff to provoke the plaintiff to displaying his neurotic tendencies;” also that “as a direct and proximate result of the misconduct of the defendant, its attorneys, agents and employees the previously existing traumatic neurosis was deepened, extended, and aggravated.”
Before the personal injury case came to trial, additional proceedings were had in the workmen’s compensation case. In those proceedings counsel for appellant stated in writing that the issue was: “Is plaintiff’s present disability due to the injury of December 3, 1958?” Having stated the question, appellant’s counsel then said, “The answer should be yes.”
Judge Talbot Smith, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, granted summary judgment for the appellee on the ground that appellant’s position in the personal injury case is so clearly inconsistent with his position before the Workmen’s Compensation Commission that the principle of judicial estoppel applies, citing Scarano v. Central R. Co. of New Jersey, 203 F.2d 510 (3rd Cir. 1953), and cases of like import. We agree. Appellant having taken the unequivocal position in the workmen’s compensation proceeding that his present disability is due solely to the 1958 injury, he will not be permitted to assert in this action that his disability is a result of subsequent tortious conduct by the appellee.
For the reasons set forth in Judge Smith’s opinion, the judgment is affirmed.

Question: Did the court refuse to reach the merits of the appeal because it concluded that the defendant had immunity?
A. No
B. Yes
C. Mixed answer
D. Issue not discussed
Answer:

Answer: D