Opinion ID: 861144
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: issues

Text: Dickson raises two issues on appeal, both involving the jury instructions proposed by Jitney’s counsel, to which Dickson’s counsel objected, but which, nevertheless, the trial judge gave to the jury before they deliberated. We state these two issues as Dickson framed them in his brief: FIRST ISSUE The trial court erred in giving Defendant’s Instructions D-8 and D-9 because the same contain conflicting statements of the law which allow the defense based on an open and obvious danger to premises as contributory negligence being a complete bar to the Appellant’s claim and which negates the duty of the store owner to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition and places the entire fault on the business invitee who had no control of the premises or equipment causing the conditions resulting from the store owner’s failure to properly maintain its equipment and premises. SECOND ISSUE The trial court erred in granting 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. Said instruction ignores that there can be more than one proximate cause of injury and is in hopeless conflict with Plaintiff’s Instruction P-9 so that the jury was left with a definition of proximate cause which, when applied as defined by the court, led to a verdict for the Defendant, which is based on an erroneous statement of the law.