Opinion ID: 1632630
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: After holding that the failure to move for a new trial precluded review of all assignments of error, the Court of Appeals held that [i]n spite of the foregoing, the record has been informally examined. ... An informal examination of the record is unknown to the appellate judicial process. It is a patent nullity and an idle gesture. The effect of the holding that review was precluded by failure to move for a new trial was to render the ensuing review dicta. We, therefore, have nothing before the Court from the Court of Appeals on the sufficiency question. We may only review the proof in accordance with the usual rules relating to directed verdicts and without regard to the informal review of the Court of Appeals. Those rules require that the trial judges and the appellate courts take the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in favor of the petitioner, allow all reasonable inferences in his favor, discard all countervailing evidence and deny the motion where there is any doubt as to the conclusions to be drawn from the whole evidence. A verdict should be directed only where a reasonable mind could draw but one conclusion. Holmes v. Wilson, 551 S.W.2d 682 (Tenn. 1977). Even when tested by this liberal rule, plaintiff's case must fall. The proof shows that this building is entered through a plate glass doorway. There are two thirty (30) inch doors in the center with a single nineteen and three quarters (19 3/4) inch glass on either side. On the outside of each door there was a conspicuous handle or pull. On the inside of each was a metal push bar. Plaintiff entered the building upset and agitated because of an adverse credit rating about which he had come to complain. He paid little or no attention to the doorway assembly or structure. He got his credit rating straightened out to his satisfaction and left somewhat elated because of this. He was preoccupied going in and coming out and gave the doorway little or no attention either time. The door assembly was well marked; it was broad open daylight; there was nothing to obstruct his view. Carelessly, he simply walked into a window or glass 19 3/4 inches wide at most, an area so small that to have treated it as an opening it would have been necessary to turn sideways in order to walk through it. This is a conventional doorway assembly with metal framing  apparently aluminum  around each door. All was in plain view. This plaintiff's injuries came as a direct result of his own inattention; he was contributorily negligent as a matter of law. We reverse the Court of Appeals and sustain the Trial Judge. BROCK, C.J., and FONES, COOPER and HARBISON, JJ., concurring.