Opinion ID: 2006600
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The last assignment deals with the trial court's failure to submit this requested interrogatory:

Text: Do you find from the evidence that there was sufficient room on the shoulder on the east side of the highway for such distance south of and east of the place where the collision occurred in this case to have permitted the plaintiff, John F. Berghammer, to have driven his truck off the pavement and onto the shoulder? The court refused to submit this interrogatory. We find no error in such refusal. Interrogatories should not deal with specific terms of evidence. They should be directed toward some ultimate fact which is essential to the jury's determination of the case. The interrogatory above set out does not pose such a question. It merely asks for a determination of one evidentiary fact, which could at best partially substantiate or refute plaintiffs' overall testimony. It could not determine any ultimate fact decisive to the verdict in this case. Ipsen v. Ruess, 241 Iowa 730, 737, 738, 41 N.W.2d 658, 664; Dezsi v. Mutual Benefit Health and Accident Association, 255 Iowa 1027, 1037, 125 N.W.2d 219, 225; Barnard v. Cedar Rapids City Cab Company, 257 Iowa 734, 748, 133 N.W.2d 884, 894; and Livingston v. Morarend, 260 Iowa 530, 539, 149 N.W.2d 850, 855. As pointed out in Ipsen v. Ruess, supra, the trial court has wide discretion in deciding what interrogatories should be submitted to the jury. We believe the decision here was the correct one. We have reviewed all the errors assigned by defendant and find no reversible error. The judgments are therefore affirmed. Affirmed. LARSON, STUART, MASON, and BECKER, JJ., concur. UHLENHOPP, J., MOORE, C. J., and RAWLINGS, J., concur except as to Division II and the judgment for Lillian J. Berghammer, to which they dissent. REES, J., takes no part.