Opinion ID: 1841842
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The John Wayne Story

Text: Appellant: Notwithstanding the correctness of its initial ruling, permitting the factual issue of Plaintiff's knowledge of the dangerous condition to go to the jury, the trial judge's subsequent John Wayne instruction, says the Appellant, was the virtual equivalent of informing the jury that, as a matter of law, the Plaintiff assumed the risk of injury by undertaking the welding job. It is not the use of the John Wayne hypothetical, as such, that meets with Appellant's disapproval; rather, says the Appellant, the trial court's dramatization of such an extreme example of an admitted assumption of risk situation unfairly influenced the jury to equate the John Wayne story with the instant case, to the exclusion of the jury's factfinding prerogative with respect to the hidden danger principle. Appellees: The trial judge clearly preserved to the jury its factfinding options, say the Appellees, pointing to portions of his jury instructions immediately following the John Wayne story: Now you're getting back into what I was talking about in the three elements of assuming the risk. There must be a danger that he's aware of and he goes ahead and does it anyway. So either you've got to be aware of it or by the exercise of reasonable diligence, should have been aware of it. That's what we're talking about here.... [Mr. Chance is saying] the county didn't warn [him] of the danger he was going into; they knew it was there and should have warned him. Now that's [his] contention. [The defendants'] contention is that we, on the other hand, ... told him to come out there and do this; and that's the contentions of the parties. Now all I'm trying to do is tell you what the law is. I'm not telling you what you must believe and what you don't believe, that's up to you. I'm trying to frame it in laymen's language to where you will see what the contentions of the parties are and be able to intelligently act on the evidence as you find it.