Opinion ID: 861144
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: SECOND ISSUE: The trial court erred in granting

Text: 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. Jury Instruction No. D-3, of which Dickson complains in his second issue, reads as follows: JURY INSTRUCTION NO. D-3 The Court instructs the jury that the phrase proximate cause used in the instructions of the Court, means that event which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury without which the result would not have occurred; it is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. Dickson contends that the definition of proximate cause contained in this instruction contains a but for clause 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. Thus, Dickson argues that Instruction D-3 disregarded the proposition that there can be more than one proximate cause for an injury and that this instruction contradicted Instruction P-9, a correct comparative negligence instruction, which we previously quoted. The definition of proximate cause in Instruction D-3, without the last portion of the compound sentence, is correct. The phrase, [i]t is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, renders the definition proximate cause as it would apply to the facts in the case sub judice incorrect. It is, of course, error to grant a jury instruction that misstates the law applicable to a case. Munford, Inc. v. Fleming, 597 So. 2d 1282, 1286 (Miss. 1992). When the trial court considered what instructions to grant, Dickson’s counsel objected to Instruction D-3 for the same reasons that he has argued in his brief in this appeal. However, when the trial judge decided to grant Instruction D-3, he opined: I think they [the instructions] can be read together, will be read together. So it will be given. Jitney Jungle relies on Grisham v. John Q. Long V.F.W. Post, 519 So. 2d 413, 417 (Miss. 1988) to support its assertion that Instruction D-3 correctly defined proximate cause. In Grisham, the Mississippi Supreme Court did write the following sentence about proximate cause: The proximate cause of an injury is that cause which in natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any efficient intervening cause produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. Id. (citation omitted). The absence from the foregoing quotation of the latter part of the compound sentence in Instruction D-3 to which Dickson objects, i. e. [i]t is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, is conspicuous. We conclude that Grisham does not support Jitney Jungle’s proposition that Instruction D-3 in its entirety correctly explained the concept of proximate cause. However, were the inclusion of the final portion of Instruction D-3 erroneous, this error was corrected by the trial court’s granting Instruction P-9, the first sentence of which instructs the jury that there may be more than one proximate cause of an accident and damages. This phrase is a correct statement of the law. See Tharp v. Bunge Corp., 641 So. 2d 20, 24 (Miss. 1994) (Our law sets forth the premise that there may be more than one proximate cause to a negligent act.). Dickson argues that Instruction D-3 can be interpreted to mean only that proximate cause is the last negligent act contributory to an injury, and that therefore it wrongly states the law. Hence the trial judge erred when he granted Instruction D-3. However, our standard of review requires us to evaluate proposed errors of instructing the jury in terms of the instructions as a whole. Unless Instruction D-3 hopelessly contradicts Instruction P-9 so that we can only conclude that giving both of them to the jury hopelessly confused its members, then the trial judge’s giving Instruction P-9 corrected whatever error of explanation of proximate cause Instruction D-3 contained. In Payne v. Rain Forest Nurseries, Inc., 540 So. 2d 35, 41 (Miss. 1989), the supreme court warned that where we find two or more instructions in hopeless and substantive conflict with each other, we often reverse. Indeed, that court did reverse and remand for a new trial in Payne because it found that one of the jury instructions was in hopeless and substantial conflict [with the facts of that case]. Id. This Court exercises the temerity to apply a crude form of logic to instructions D-3 and P-9 to determine whether they so hopelessly contradict each other that it must reverse and remand this case for a new trial. Instruction D-3 includes within its explanation of probable cause the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. Instruction P-9 instructs the jury that there may be more than one proximate cause of an accident and damages. For our purpose we allow the phrase proximate cause to equal the last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. We then substitute this equivalent phrase for the term proximate cause in Instruction P-9 to find that it reads as follows: [T]here may be more than one last negligent act contributory to an injury, without which such injury would not have resulted of an accident and damages. While this resulting sentence admittedly reads awkwardly, it is not contradictory in terms of its intended application to the maxim of comparative negligence, which was in turn applied to the evidence in this case. The evidence to which this sentence applied was Jitney Jungle’s negligence in allowing the drains for the freezers to overflow when the freezers defrosted as Dickson charged versus Dickson’s comparative negligence in ignoring an open and obvious danger which the water overflowing from the freezers’ drain created as Jitney Jungle charged. Jitney Jungle’s knowingly allowing the freezers’ drains to overflow may have been the last negligent act contributory to [Dickson’s] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted; or Dickson’s negligence in ignoring the open and obvious danger of the water on the floor of aisle number nine may have been the last negligent act contributory to [his] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted. If the jury found from the preponderance of the evidence that Jitney Jungle’s knowingly allowing the freezers’ drains to overflow was the last negligent act contributory to [Dickson’s] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, then it would be warranted in returning a verdict for Dickson. On the other hand, if the jury found that Dickson’s negligence in ignoring the open and obvious danger of the water on the floor of aisle number nine was the last negligent act contributory to [his] injury, without which such injury would not have resulted, then it would have returned a verdict for Jitney Jungle. We must hasten to add, however, that another possibility unrelated to our analysis of this issue remains to explain the jury’s verdict for Jitney Jungle; and that possibility was that they found that Dickson had failed to establish even a prima facie case that Jitney Jungle had been negligent. There was also a fourth possible verdict consistent with our analysis of this issue, and that would have been that the jury determined that both Jitney Jungle’s knowingly allowing the freezers’ drains to overflow and Dickson’s ignoring the open and obvious danger of the water on the floor of aisle number nine were the last negligent act[s] contributory to Dickson’s injury, without both of which such injury would not have resulted. Had that happened, Instruction P-9 further instructed the members of the jury that they must determine the total amount of the Plaintiff’s damages, and reduce them by the percentage, if any, which Johnny Dickson’s negligence, if any, contributed to the accident. In addition to the foregoing standard of review which we quoted, the Mississippi Supreme Court established the following test for a reversal of a trial court on the grounds of misdirecting the jury with instructions in Wallace v. J. C. Penney Co., 109 So. 2d 876, 878 (Miss. 1959): No judgment shall be reversed on the ground of misdirection to the jury. . . unless it shall affirmatively appear, from the whole record, that such judgment has resulted in a