Opinion ID: 1326012
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appeal as to defendants hare

Text: Plaintiff excepts to and assigns as error certain portions of the judge's charge to the jury. After explaining the general principles of law applicable to the case and in the course of applying the law to the evidence, the court gave the following instruction relating to proximate cause: Her case is bottomed on the theory, and she has alleged and has offered evidence which she says and contends should satisfy you that her daughter, in attempting to avoid this car, ran off the road on the right, and then in attempting to get her car out of what has been described as a drain ditch on the right, she cut back to the left, her maneuvering, or her cut back to the left, as a result of that, she went across the road and in the ditch. Now, youthe burden is on Mrs. Williams to satisfy you, if she has satisfied you that young Hare committed any such act, as I have outlined here for you, and that act was a negligent act, and it is negligence per se, but it is for you to say whether or not it caused this injury, and before you can answer that part of it, proximate cause, then you would answer this question, whether or not such acts would have caused a reasonable and prudent person namely, the driver of Mrs. Williams' car, or the car she was riding in, to have taken the action that she took, and whether or not her action from that point on was that of a reasonable and prudent person.    But you will not charge this plaintiff with a bad choice on the part of her hostess driver Mrs. Boulerice, but you will only charge her with satisfying you that Mrs. Boulerice acted as a reasonable and prudent person would act under the same or similar circumstances. (Emphasis ours.) The only negligence of legal importance is negligence which proximately causes or contributes to the death or injury under judicial investigation. Miller v. Coppage, 261 N.C. 430, 135 S.E.2d 1; Oxendine v. Lowry, 260 N.C. 709, 133 S.E.2d 687. Proximate cause is the cause that produced the result in continuous sequence and without which it would not have occurred, and one from which any man of ordinary prudence could have foreseen that such a result was probable under all the facts as they existed. Jenkins v. Leftwich Electric Co., 254 N.C. 553, 119 S.E.2d 767. Foreseeability is an essential element of proximate cause. Pinyan v. Settle, 263 N.C. 578, 139 S.E.2d 863; Pittman v. Swanson, 255 N.C. 681, 122 S.E. 2d 814. This does not mean that the defendant must have foreseen the injury in the exact form in which it occurred, but that, in the exercise of reasonable care, the defendant might have foreseen that some injury would result from his act or omission, or that consequences of a generally injurious nature might have been expected. Slaughter v. Slaughter, 264 N.C. 732, 142 S.E.2d 683; Bondurant v. Mastin, 252 N.C. 190, 113 S.E.2d 292. In that part of the charge which applied the law to the evidence, the court's instruction on proximate cause was limited to the element of foreseeability, and that element was incorrectly stated. Although the court correctly defined proximate cause in an earlier general statement of the law, the subsequent erroneous instruction constitutes error. Barber v. Heeden, 265 N.C. 682, 144 S.E.2d 886; Rodgers v. Thompson, 256 N. C. 265, 123 S.E.2d 785; Mitchell v. White, 256 N.C. 437, 124 S.E.2d 137. For error in the charge plaintiff is entitled to a New trial. Appeal as to defendants Boulericereversed. Appeal as to defendants Harenew trial.