Opinion ID: 1913445
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Allegations of Negligence

Text: Plaintiff alleged that defendant failed to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition, that defendant failed to warn or otherwise give her notice of an unsafe and hazardous condition about which defendant knew or should have known, that defendant invited plaintiff onto or permitted her to enter a portion of the house that defendant knew or should have known was in an unsafe and hazardous condition, and that defendant failed to maintain adequate support beneath the portion of the floor over which it knew or should have known plaintiff or others would walk while defendant performed its construction activities. The district court's instructions advised the jury that the plaintiff alleged that as she walked across the floor adjacent to an interior stairway in her [house], the floor collapsed and she fell approximately eight feet onto a concrete floor below, in the basement of the [house]. She alleges that an employee of the defendant ... had removed the support from beneath that section of the floor. The district court also instructed the jury that before plaintiff could recover, she must have proved, by the greater weight of the evidence, each and all of the following: 1. That the defendant either created the condition, knew of the condition, or, by the exercise of reasonable care, would have discovered the condition; 2. That the defendant should have realized that the condition involved an unreasonable risk of harm to plaintiff; 3. The defendant should have expected that the plaintiff either: a. would not discover or realize the danger; or b. would fail to protect herself against the danger; 4. That the defendant failed to use reasonable care to protect plaintiff against the danger; 5. That the condition was the proximate cause of some damage to the plaintiff; and 6. The nature and extent of that damage. Defendant argues that by failing to specify the acts of negligence which plaintiff alleged and which were supported by the evidence, the jury was permitted to speculate as to which of defendant's acts constituted negligence. It is true that where specific acts of negligence are alleged and supported by the evidence, it is error for the trial court to fail to instruct as to such allegations. Enyeart v. Swartz, 213 Neb. 732, 331 N.W.2d 513 (1983), appeal after remand 218 Neb. 425, 355 N.W.2d 786 (1984); Pool v. Romatzke, 177 Neb. 870, 131 N.W.2d 593 (1964). However, to establish reversible error in a trial court's refusal to give a requested instruction, one has the burden to show that (1) the tendered instruction is a correct statement of the law, (2) the tendered instruction is warranted by the evidence, and (3) the appellant was prejudiced by the court's refusal to give the tendered instruction. Marple v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 244 Neb. 274, 505 N.W.2d 715 (1993). Moreover, in reviewing a claim of prejudice from instructions given or refused, the instructions must be read together, and if, taken as a whole, they correctly state the law, are not misleading, and adequately cover the issues supported by the pleadings and evidence, there is no prejudicial error necessitating a reversal. Vredeveld v. Clark, 244 Neb. 46, 504 N.W.2d 292 (1993); Behm v. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co., 241 Neb. 838, 491 N.W.2d 334 (1992); Grote v. Meyers Land & Cattle Co., 240 Neb. 959, 485 N.W.2d 748 (1992). Whatever else might be said about this phase of defendant's complaints concerning the district court's instructions, a mere reading of the portions of the district court's instructions set forth above makes it clear that defendant was not prejudiced by the district court's characterization of plaintiff's claims of negligence. With the exception of the matter of notice, the instructions given accurately summarized those of plaintiff's allegations which were supported by the evidence; that is, defendant invited plaintiff to walk on an area from which the support had been removed. Since the evidence supported plaintiff's allegation that defendant failed to warn her of the dangerous condition created by the removal of the support, the trial court erred in not instructing the jury as to that allegation of negligence. However, the error benefited defendant, for in that regard the instructions limited what the jury could consider as constituting defendant's lack of reasonable care. The jury could not know of claims about which it was not told and therefore could not take them into account. That being so, defendant could not have been prejudiced by the district court's disregard of plaintiff's failure-to-warn allegation.