Opinion ID: 1224193
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: jury instruction regarding violation of safety law

Text: Child next argues that the court committed reversible error in instructing the jury that a violation of a safety law may be, as opposed to is, evidence of negligence. A court's jury instructions are legal determinations, which we will review for correctness. See Ong Int'l (U.S.A.) Inc. v. 11th Ave. Corp., 850 P.2d 447, 452 (Utah 1993). The safety statute to which Child refers requires drivers to use automobile headlights under certain conditions and is essentially embodied in jury instruction 31, which reads: The traffic laws of the State of Utah [provide] that every vehicle upon a highway within this state at any time from a half hour after sunset to a half hour before sunrise and at any other time when, due to insufficient light or unfavorable atmospheric conditions, persons and vehicles on the highway are not clearly discernible at a distance of 1,000 feet ahead, shall use headlights. The court further instructed the jury that [v]iolation of a safety law may be evidence of negligence. According to Child, under Gaw v. State, 798 P.2d 1130, 1135 (Utah Ct.App.1990), violation of a safety law is evidence of negligence. Child thus asserts in his brief: The District Court was apparently confused, thinking that its statement that a violation of the law in question was evidence of negligence would be tantamount to a statement that it was negligence .... The may be evidence of negligence standard, settled upon by the District Court is simply too vague, is contrary to settled Utah law, and does not let the jury know that violation of a safety law is evidence of negligence, even if the jury decides that it does not, standing alone, constitute negligence. The above-quoted passage from Child's brief clearly indicates that the real issue has eluded him. The issue in Gaw was whether violation of a statute or an ordinance constitutes per se negligence or prima facie evidence of negligence. Gaw, 798 P.2d at 1134-35. Negligence per se, which usually results from the violation of a statute, is defined as [c]onduct, whether of action or omission, which may be declared and treated as negligence without any argument or proof as to the particular surrounding circumstances.... Black's Law Dictionary 1035 (6th ed.1990). In contrast, prima facie evidence is [t]hat quantum of evidence that suffices for proof of a particular fact until the fact is contradicted by other evidence; once a trier of fact is faced with conflicting evidence, it must weigh the prima facie evidence with all of the other probative evidence presented. Id. at 1190. Therefore, prima facie evidence of negligence is evidence which would be sufficient to submit the question of negligence to the jury and support a verdict of negligence. However, such evidence would not require the jury to return such a verdict. To illustrate, a driver who reasonably increases his speed in an attempt to avoid being rear-ended by a runaway truck on a canyon road is not negligent per se, even though by increasing his speed he has violated the speed limit statute. In fact, a failure to reasonably increase speed to avoid an accident under such circumstances may itself constitute evidence of negligence. Nevertheless, whether the statute was violated and whether such violation constitutes evidence of negligence is for the jury to determine. As we have previously stated, [T]he violation of a statute does not necessarily constitute negligence per se and may be considered only as evidence of negligence.... [The violation] may be regarded as `prima facie evidence of negligence, but is subject to justification or excuse if the evidence is such that it reasonably could be found.' Intermountain Farmers Ass'n v. Fitzgerald, 574 P.2d 1162, 1164-65 (Utah 1978) (emphasis added) (quoting Thompson v. Ford Motor Co., 16 Utah 2d 30, 33-34, 395 P.2d 62, 64 (1964)); see also Dixon v. Stewart, 658 P.2d 591, 600-01 (Utah 1982) (Although the provisions of the negligent homicide statute scarcely seem to qualify as a `safety standard,' the same principle should apply, namely, that criminal culpability generally constitutes only evidence of negligence in a civil action, rather than negligence per se as a matter of law.). In the instant case, the trial court instructed the jury that violation of the automobile headlight statute may be evidence of negligence. While the court did not use the term prima facie, use of that term was unnecessary because the court adequately instructed the jury that if it determined that Gonda violated the headlight statute, it could find  but was not required to find  that she was negligent. If the court's instruction was prejudicial in any way, it was prejudicial to Gonda, because it did not notify the jury that her alleged violation was subject to justification or excuse. We therefore hold that the trial court did not commit error that prejudiced Child in any way when it instructed the jury that violation of a safety law may be evidence of negligence.