Opinion ID: 1841473
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Negligence Per Se Instructions Should Have Been Given

Text: Administratrix' point under this assignment of error, however, is not wholly without merit. She argues alternatively that violation of the statutory standards, if she could convince the jury that such occurred, was negligence per se and not mere evidence of negligence. In this she is correct. As we have explained above, however, she has waived the point. At the risk of repetition, this waiver occurred when Administratrix requested and was granted two negligence per se instructions, Nos. 37 and 38, and then failed to withdraw the two otherwise comparable mere evidence of negligence instructions, Nos. 11 and 13. See pages 701, 704 above. Administratrix' waiver in no way derives from her having requested the two alternative mere evidence of negligence instructions. This, it will be remembered, was done in the face of the trial judge's refusal to grant her original negligence per se instructions, Nos. 6, 9 and 10. Indeed, if the instruction conference had ended there, the submission of Nos. 11 and 13 to the jury would have constituted reversible error, for there is no question but that those two instructions contain an erroneous statement of the law on a material point. Our cases establish that, where a party requests a correct instruction only to have it refused by the trial judge, that party does not, by requesting another instruction bowing to the trial judge's ruling, waive the right to assign as error on appeal the refusal of the correct instruction. Home Insurance Company of New York v. Dahmer, 167 Miss. 893, 901, 150 So. 650, 652 (1933); Foster v. City of Meridian, 150 Miss. 715, 728, 116 So. 820, 823 (1928). At trial, an attorney on his oath is twice obligated. He must with warm zeal and all good fidelity advance the cause of his client. At the same time, he is expected to accept and respect rulings of the trial court once finally made. The tension in these two obligations is most felt by the lawyer when the trial judge rules against his client on a point where the lawyer's experience and knowledge inform him that the trial judge is wrong. When the trial judge makes a ruling adverse to a litigant, and where that litigant's lawyer has properly noted his objection, that litigant and his lawyer are entitled to try the rest of the case on the assumption that the trial judge's ruling will not be disturbed on appeal. And, when that litigant reaches this Court we will not imply a waiver from the subsequent conduct which does nothing more than show the lawyer's obligatory respect for the trial judge while at the same time continuing as best can be done the advancement of his client's cause. We reaffirm this rule today for it is wholly consistent with what we hold here: that at the end of the instruction conference Administratrix requested and was granted two perfectly good negligence per se instructions [12] and that at that point she had the duty to withdraw Instruction Nos. 11 and 13, the alternative mere evidence of negligence instructions which had been granted at her drudging request earlier. It is her failure to withdraw Nos. 11 and 13 that works the waiver, not her having requested them in the first place.