Opinion ID: 861144
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis and resolution of the issues

Text: In Boone v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 680 So. 2d 844, 845 (Miss. 1996), the Mississippi Supreme Court reiterated the following standard of review for error in granting and denying jury instructions: On appeal, this Court does not review jury instructions in isolation; rather, they are read as a whole to determine if the jury was properly instructed. Accordingly, defects in specific instructions do not require reversal where all instructions taken as a whole fairly -- although not perfectly -- announce the applicable primary rules of law. However, if those instructions do not fairly or adequately instruct the jury, this Court can and will reverse. This Court must resolve these two issues in accordance with this standard of review.
Defendant’s Instructions D-8 and D-9? The two jury instructions which the trial judge granted Jitney Jungle and of which Dickson complains in this first issue read as follows: JURY INSTRUCTION NO. D-8 The Court instructs the jury that a store operator owes a duty to its customers to exercise ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition or to warn the customer of hidden or concealed perils which the store operator knows of or should know of in the exercise of reasonable care. But the responsibility of the store operator is not absolute; it is not that of an insurer. The store operator is entitled to assume that the customer will see and observe that which would be obvious through reasonably expected use of an ordinary person's senses. There is no duty to give the customer notice of an obvious defect or condition. JURY INSTRUCTION NO. D-9 The Court instructs the jury that a customer in a store such as Johnny Dickson has a duty to use ordinary reasonable care for his own safety and to use that degree of care and prudence which a person of ordinary intelligence and prudence would exercise under the same or similar circumstances and must make reasonable use of his own faculties to observe and avoid dangers upon the premises. The Court further instructs the jury that a store owner has no duty to warn a customer of a dangerous condition that is open and obvious to anyone exercising ordinary or reasonable care for his own safety. Therefore, the Court instructs you that if you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that the condition of the floor was open and obvious to anyone exercising ordinary and reasonable care for his own safety and that Johnny Dickson failed to exercise ordinary or reasonable care for his own safety, then he was negligent and should you find from a preponderance of the evidence that such negligence was the sole proximate cause of the accident in question and the injuries to Johnny Dickson, if any, it is your sworn duty to return a verdict for the Defendant, Jitney Jungle Stores of America, Inc. Dickson initiates his argument on this issue with the rhetorical question, Is Mississippi truly a comparative negligence state?, which he then answers, ‘Not totally,’ because of the resort to contributory negligence’s being a total bar via the use of the open and obvious danger doctrine, which ignores the negligence of the original actor in creating the hazard and places the entire blame on the injured party for either not seeing what he or she should have seen, and being hurt by what is described by others as an ‘open and obvious’ danger, or by the failure to recognize the hazard presented by the conditions present. He further argues that the open and obvious danger is the purest form of contributory negligence being a bar to the claim of an injured party, and that it shortcuts the ‘assumption of the risk’ doctrine which requires that, at least, the injured party recognize the hazard and voluntarily expose himself or herself to that danger. Dickson concludes his argument by submitting that the time has come for this Honorable Court to give the ‘open and obvious danger rule’ its proper demise and burial, since it is not only violative of the comparative negligence statute, but is an assumption of risk defense with two key elements missing, that being the recognition of the hazard and a voluntary exposure to the known hazard. On July 6, 1994, Dickson filed his brief with the Mississippi Supreme Court. Fifteen days later, on July 21, 1994, that court unknowingly accepted Dickson’s invitation to give the ‘open and obvious danger rule’ its proper demise and burial in Tharp v. Bunge Corp., 641 So. 2d 20, 25 (Miss. 1994) when it advised the bench and bar: We now abolish the so-called open and obvious defense and apply our true comparative negligence doctrine. The jury found that there was negligence in the case at hand; the trial judge erred in construing the open and obvious defense as a complete bar when it really is only a mitigation of damages on a comparative negligence basis under Miss. Code Ann. § 11-7-15. Section 11-7-15 of the Mississippi Code establishes the principle that in personal injury cases like the one sub judice, [c]ontributory negligence shall not bar a recovery, but damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person injured. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-7-15 (1972). The Mississippi Supreme Court has reaffirmed that the open and obvious doctrine is not a complete defense to negligent actions in premise liability cases where the condition complained of is unreasonably dangerous. Tate v. Southern Jitney Jungle Co., 650 So. 2d 1347, 1351 (Miss. 1995); see also Downs v. Choo, 656 So. 2d 84, 87 (Miss. 1995) (reversing the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to defendant store owner in claim filed by customer who slipped and fell on banana and saying that the parties should have the benefit of the supreme court’s change in . . . jurisprudence). Nevertheless, the supplanting of the open and obvious defense in premises liability claims by applying the concept of comparative negligence as provided in Section 11-7-15 does not automatically condemn Jitney Jungle’s Instructions D-8 and D-9. In Bunge, 641 So. 2d at 24, the supreme court explained the manner in which comparative negligence supplanted the open and obvious defense as follows: The defendant may be negligent, but so too may be the plaintiff. Thus, our comparative law applies. The open and obvious standard is simply a comparative negligence defense used to compare the negligence of the plaintiff to the negligence of the defendant. If the defendant was not negligent, it makes no difference if the dangerous condition was open and obvious to the plaintiff since the plaintiff must prove some negligence on [the] part of the defendant before recovery may be had. On the other hand, if the defendant and the plaintiff were both at fault in causing or attributing to the harm, then damages can be determined through the comparative negligence of both. Theoretically, if a plaintiff is ninety-nine (99%) percent negligent and the defendant is only one (1%) percent negligent, the plaintiff is still entitled to recover the one percent (1%) attributable to the negligence of the defendant. To preserve for this Court’s review an error based on the granting of a jury instruction, the litigant must state to the trial judge the ground on which he objects to the granting of the instruction. Haddox v. State, 636 So. 2d 1229, 1240 (Miss. 1994) (the assertion on appeal of grounds for an objection [to a jury instruction] which was not the assertion at trial is not an issue properly preserved on appeal.).
With the foregoing discussion in mind, we first consider Instruction D-8, which we quoted earlier. Dickson’s counsel objected to the trial judge’s giving Instruction D-8 because there is no proof on an open and obvious defect to support this instruction and because it violates the comparative negligence doctrine . . . . The first objection is disingenuous because it potentially can be interpreted to mean that if there was no evidence of an open and obvious defect to support this instruction, then there might be no evidence of any defect, latent, or otherwise to support Dickson’s claim for damages against Jitney Jungle. Dickson does not pursue this first objection in his brief. The second basis for Dickson’s objection, it violates the comparative negligence doctrine . . . . requires this Court to consider Instruction No. P-9, which the trial court gave at Dickson’s request. Instruction No. P-9 reads as follows: The Court instructs the jury that there may be more than one proximate cause of an accident and damages. If you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that the Defendant, Jitney Jungle Stores of America, Inc., was negligent as defined by the Court’s instructions; and that its negligence, if any, proximately contributed to cause the Plaintiff’s fall and his injuries and damages, if any, and you further find from a preponderance of the evidence that the Plaintiff, Johnny Dickson, was also negligent as defined by the Court’s instructions; so that the combined negligence of the Defendant and of the Plaintiff proximately caused the accident, the Plaintiff’s injuries and damages, if any, proximately caused thereby, you must determine the total amount of the Plaintiff’s damages, and reduce them by the percentage, if any, which Johnny Dickson’s negligence, if any, contributed to the accident. We must further recite that the trial judge’s Instruction No. C-1 which he gave to the jury contained the following paragraph: You are not to single out one instruction alone as stating the law, but you must consider these instructions as a whole. Now this Court hearkens back to its standard of review which it previously quoted, and determines that Jitney’s Instruction D-8 properly presented to the jury the issue of whether Dickson was comparatively negligent and that when Instruction P-9 is read and considered as a whole, the issue of Dickson and Jitney Jungle’s comparative negligence was properly presented to the jury for their consideration and resolution. Thus, the trial court’s granting Instruction D-8 which Jitney Jungle requested was not error because that instruction must be read in conjunction with all the other jury instructions, including the trial judge’s own instructions in which he instructed the jury not to single out one instruction alone as stating the law, but [instead] consider these instructions as a whole.
Dickson argues that the trial judge erred when he granted Instruction D-9 which Jitney Jungle requested for the following reasons: The facts of this case . . . clearly show that Jitney Jungle denied the existence of water [on] the floor [in] aisle 9, where water was previously known to accumulate due to clogged and overflowing drains from the freezer units on aisle 8, and be granted a jury instruction which invokes the open and obvious danger rule based on the vague terms condition of the floor was open and obvious to anyone exercising ordinary and reasonable care for his own safety without describing what condition the jury was supposed to find was open and obvious which caused Dickson to slip and fall. This instruction allows Jitney Jungle to escape it’s admitting that there was a hazard on the floor, and puts the entire blame on the Plaintiff. It further allowed the jury to ignore the hidden or latent problems of the stopped-up and backed-up and overflowing drains of which the proprietor had superior knowledge and about which it failed to warn Dickson and other business invitees. Dickson proceeds to ask, Where is the proof that the water on the floor was open and obvious to Johnny Dickson? There is a complete absence of proof to support this instruction. He further argues that there is no dispute that Dickson was not warned of the known propensities of water overflowing onto the store’s floors at any time by the Jitney Jungle personnel. Therefore, Dickson concludes that Instruction D-9 was not factually based. For a jury instruction properly to be given, there must be an evidentiary basis for it. Rester v. Lott, 566 So. 2d 1266, 1269 (Miss. 1990). In this case the vagueness of the condition of the floor on which Dickson slipped and fell actually reflected the Plaintiff’s bare discharge of his burden of proof that indeed the floor was wet where he slipped and fell. The store’s co-manager, Claude Smith, testified that when he got to Dickson in aisle nine there was so much milk on the floor that he could not tell whether there was water in addition to the milk on the floor. Not one of the three police officers who responded to Dickson’s call for assistance testified that water was the cause of the damp area on the floor in which Dickson had fallen. In short, Dickson’s complaint that Instruction D-9 was unsupported by any evidence about the specific condition of the floor is almost tantamount to an admission that he had failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence the source of the damp area and thus Jitney Jungle’s negligence. Be that as it may, Instruction D-9 was factually consistent with Dickson’s claim that he had slipped on a wet area on the floor in aisle number 9 which had been caused by the freezers’ leaking into a clogged drain when they defrosted, about which the store’s management knew. Thus, we hold that the trial judge did not err when he granted Instruction D-9. Dickson offers no argument of law to support his contention that the trial judge erred when he gave Instruction D-9 to the jury. With regard to the argument that Instruction D-9 violates the comparative negligence doctrine, we repeat that the trial court’s giving Instruction P-9, which Dickson requested, adequately instructed the jury on this issue and was therefore consistent with the Mississippi Supreme Court’s supplanting the open and obvious danger defense with the statutory concept of comparative negligence.
Defendant’s Instruction D-3 which contains an erroneous definition of proximate cause because it contains a but for and singular definition of proximate cause which negates the comparative negligence doctrine and erroneously instructed the jury that there could be but one event immediately preceding the fall which was the proximate cause of the injury. Jury Instruction No. D-3, of which Dickson complains in his second issue, reads as follows: JURY INSTRUCTION NO. D-3 The Court instructs the jury that the phrase proximate cause used in the instructions of the Court, means that event which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury without which the result would not have occurred; it is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. Dickson contends that the definition of proximate cause contained in this instruction contains a but for clause which negates the comparative negligence doctrine and erroneously instructed the jury that there could be but one event immediately preceding the fall which was the proximate cause of the injury. Thus, Dickson argues that Instruction D-3 disregarded the proposition that there can be more than one proximate cause for an injury and that this instruction contradicted Instruction P-9, a correct comparative negligence instruction, which we previously quoted. The definition of proximate cause in Instruction D-3, without the last portion of the compound sentence, is correct. The phrase, [i]t is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, renders the definition proximate cause as it would apply to the facts in the case sub judice incorrect. It is, of course, error to grant a jury instruction that misstates the law applicable to a case. Munford, Inc. v. Fleming, 597 So. 2d 1282, 1286 (Miss. 1992). When the trial court considered what instructions to grant, Dickson’s counsel objected to Instruction D-3 for the same reasons that he has argued in his brief in this appeal. However, when the trial judge decided to grant Instruction D-3, he opined: I think they [the instructions] can be read together, will be read together. So it will be given. Jitney Jungle relies on Grisham v. John Q. Long V.F.W. Post, 519 So. 2d 413, 417 (Miss. 1988) to support its assertion that Instruction D-3 correctly defined proximate cause. In Grisham, the Mississippi Supreme Court did write the following sentence about proximate cause: The proximate cause of an injury is that cause which in natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any efficient intervening cause produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. Id. (citation omitted). The absence from the foregoing quotation of the latter part of the compound sentence in Instruction D-3 to which Dickson objects, i. e. [i]t is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, is conspicuous. We conclude that Grisham does not support Jitney Jungle’s proposition that Instruction D-3 in its entirety correctly explained the concept of proximate cause. However, were the inclusion of the final portion of Instruction D-3 erroneous, this error was corrected by the trial court’s granting Instruction P-9, the first sentence of which instructs the jury that there may be more than one proximate cause of an accident and damages. This phrase is a correct statement of the law. See Tharp v. Bunge Corp., 641 So. 2d 20, 24 (Miss. 1994) (Our law sets forth the premise that there may be more than one proximate cause to a negligent act.). Dickson argues that Instruction D-3 can be interpreted to mean only that proximate cause is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, and that therefore it wrongly states the law. Hence the trial judge erred when he granted Instruction D-3. However, our standard of review requires us to evaluate proposed errors of instructing the jury in terms of the instructions as a whole. Unless Instruction D-3 hopelessly contradicts Instruction P-9 so that we can only conclude that giving both of them to the jury hopelessly confused its members, then the trial judge’s giving Instruction P-9 corrected whatever error of explanation of proximate cause Instruction D-3 contained. In Payne v. Rain Forest Nurseries, Inc., 540 So. 2d 35, 41 (Miss. 1989), the supreme court warned that where we find two or more instructions in hopeless and substantive conflict with each other, we often reverse. Indeed, that court did reverse and remand for a new trial in Payne because it found that one of the jury instructions was in hopeless and substantial conflict [with the facts of that case]. Id. This Court exercises the temerity to apply a crude form of logic to instructions D-3 and P-9 to determine whether they so hopelessly contradict each other that it must reverse and remand this case for a new trial. Instruction D-3 includes within its explanation of probable cause the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. Instruction P-9 instructs the jury that there may be more than one proximate cause of an accident and damages. For our purpose we allow the phrase proximate cause to equal the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. We then substitute this equivalent phrase for the term proximate cause in Instruction P-9 to find that it reads as follows: [T]here may be more than one last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted of an accident and damages. While this resulting sentence admittedly reads awkwardly, it is not contradictory in terms of its intended application to the maxim of comparative negligence, which was in turn applied to the evidence in this case. The evidence to which this sentence applied was Jitney Jungle’s negligence in allowing the drains for the freezers to overflow when the freezers defrosted as Dickson charged versus Dickson’s comparative negligence in ignoring an open and obvious danger which the water overflowing from the freezers’ drain created as Jitney Jungle charged. Jitney Jungle’s knowingly allowing the freezers’ drains to overflow may have been the last negligent act contributory to [Dickson’s] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted; or Dickson’s negligence in ignoring the open and obvious danger of the water on the floor of aisle number nine may have been the last negligent act contributory to [his] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. If the jury found from the preponderance of the evidence that Jitney Jungle’s knowingly allowing the freezers’ drains to overflow was the last negligent act contributory to [Dickson’s] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, then it would be warranted in returning a verdict for Dickson. On the other hand, if the jury found that Dickson’s negligence in ignoring the open and obvious danger of the water on the floor of aisle number nine was the last negligent act contributory to [his] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, then it would have returned a verdict for Jitney Jungle. We must hasten to add, however, that another possibility unrelated to our analysis of this issue remains to explain the jury’s verdict for Jitney Jungle; and that possibility was that they found that Dickson had failed to establish even a prima facie case that Jitney Jungle had been negligent. There was also a fourth possible verdict consistent with our analysis of this issue, and that would have been that the jury determined that both Jitney Jungle’s knowingly allowing the freezers’ drains to overflow and Dickson’s ignoring the open and obvious danger of the water on the floor of aisle number nine were the last negligent act[s] contributory to Dickson’s injury, without both of which such injury would not have resulted. Had that happened, Instruction P-9 further instructed the members of the jury that they must determine the total amount of the Plaintiff’s damages, and reduce them by the percentage, if any, which Johnny Dickson’s negligence, if any, contributed to the accident. In addition to the foregoing standard of review which we quoted, the Mississippi Supreme Court established the following test for a reversal of a trial court on the grounds of misdirecting the jury with instructions in Wallace v. J. C. Penney Co., 109 So. 2d 876, 878 (Miss. 1959): No judgment shall be reversed on the ground of misdirection to the jury. . . unless it shall affirmatively appear, from the whole record, that such judgment has resulted in a