Court Opinion

ID: 9734210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:28:22.334625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:46.830200
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR RE-HEARING.
Hunter, J.
On petiton for re-hearing, the appellants continue to advance the case of Evansville American Legion etc. v. White (1958), 239 Ind. 138, 154 N. E. 2d 109 in support of ther contentions relative to errors contained in two instructions given by the court below. As we took a different approach in our previous opinion (see 215 N. E. 2d 42), we feel that it might lend some clarity to the previous opinion if these matters are discussed. In said petition, the appellants urge that this court erred in stating that appellants did not need prior knowledge, actual or construe*88tive, of defects in the chandelier before the duty to inspect arose. This interpretation is in error. We merely stated that the mandatory instruction on negligence (the court’s Instruction No. 1) did not have to cover the duty to inspect, for such is a further clarification of the duty of ordinary care which was adequately covered in said instruction. The duty to inspect was covered by appellants’ Instruction No. 26. Evansville, swpra, is in no way authority for a holding to the contrary. Said case arose on a question of the sufficiency of the evidence and not a question of a mandatory instruction.
The appellants contend in their petition that this court erred in holding that the appellants’ argument, as to the error in the lower court’s giving of appellee’s Instructions Nos. 1 and 10, was insufficient under Supreme Court Rule 2-17 (e) and (f). We feel that such contention has some validity in regard to our previous approach to appellee’s Instruction No. 1. However, the result is unchanged. Appellee’s Instruction No. 1 is as follows:
“It is for you, the jury, to determine from a preponderance of the evidence, how, if at all, the exercise of ordinary care would have required the defendants, or either of them, to inspect the winch and cable attached to the chandelier in question. If you find that there was such a duty to inspect, then I instruct you that such duty to inspect cannot be escaped by turning over the care and maintenance of the winch and cable to a club manager, custodian or maintenance man. The act or omission of an employee, acting within the scope of his employment, is, in the eyes of the law, the act of the employer.”
The appellants contend that the part of the instruction on the duty to inspect is in error for there was no evidence that appellants had actual or constructive knowledge of any defects in the winch or cable citing Evansville, supra. This was further covered in appellants’ Instruction No. 26. We would agree with the appellants that in order for the court to so instruct the jury, such evidence would have to be in the record. However, we find that the record does contain evidence that appellants had constructive knowledge of possible defects.
*89The evidence indicated that the chandelier was placed in the building some thirty-four (34) years prior to the accident.
The chandelier weighed approximately one hundred, and fifty (150) pounds. It was thirty (30) feet above the floor attached by 14 inch cable to the winch which was used to lower the chandelier to the floor. This apparatus had been in continual use since placement. The area immediately below the fixture was continually occupied by the public as invitees. In view of the evidence outlined above, we feel that such a period of use would alone constitute constructive notice to the appellants of possible defects.
Indeed it appears the record contained evidence that' such a period of time and use in the normal instance calls for continual maintenance procedures which entail intermittent inspections. This alone would differentiate this case from that in Evansville, supra, where constructive knowledge of defects did not arise merely due to continued use of a chair. However, a cable and winch used over a period of years in and of itself, would constitute constructive knowledge of possible defects giving rise to a duty to inspect under the circumstances presented in the facts at bar.
The remaining case law put forth by the appellants in relation to this instruction in no way relates to or supports the objections given during the trial nor could the objections relate to this instruction.
The appellants, in their discussion of this instruction, attempt to assert that it was improper to apply res ipsa loquitur to this case. However, the instruction referred to had no bearing on res ipsa loquitur, nor was such an objection within those stated at the trial.
In their petition the appellants further complain that we failed to consider their objections to the lower court’s partial deletion of their Instruction No. 16. As we are forced to write on all points of error placed before us, Warren v. Indiana Telephone Co. (1940), 217 Ind. 93, 26 N. E. 2d 399, we shall *90consider this point. The appellants’ instruction as tendered is as follows:
“You are instructed under the laws of the State of Indiana, in determining whether an act or omission is or is not negligent, the question must depend upon whether or not an injury of some kind to some person could have been reasonably expected to result from such act or omission; reasonable care requires a person to anticipate and guard against what usually happens or is likely to happen, and that a failure to do this is negligence; but reasonable care does not require him to foresee and guard against that which is not usual and not likely to occur, only to exercise that degree of care which a reasonably and careful person would exercise under the same or like circumstances.”
The court deleted the last clause beginning with “but reasonable care.” The appellants contend that this deletion was improper as this is a verbatim quote from Chicago, etc., R. Co. v. Dinius (1908), 170 Ind. 222, 231, 84 N. E. 9. In the first place, said case deals with proximate cause which contains the element of foreseeability. Secondly, the tendered instruction injects reasonable care and confuses such with foreseeability which was not done in the case cited. Consequently, the part of the instruction deleted was not a proper statement of the law involved. In fact, the lower court might properly have deleted more than it did. Thirdly, reasonable care and proximate cause are adequately and further covered by the appellants’ Instructions Nos. 6, 7, 18, 23 and 30; and, as we held in our previous opinion, the lower court is not required to instruct a jury on a point of law more than once.
Additionally, the appellants assert in their petition for rehearing that this court erred in holding that the various questions by counsel and the instructions by the judge during the voir dire examination of jurors were not reversible errors, as our holding contravenes the ruling precedents of our Supreme Court in Martin v. Lilly (1919), 188 Ind. 139, 121 N. E. 443 and Inland Steel Co. v. Gillespie *91(1914), 181 Ind. 633, 104 N. E. 76. We feel it should be pointed out that in regard to some of the questions by counsel and the instructions by the judge, we did not hold that they were not in error. However, by the authority of Gamble v. Lewis (1949), 227 Ind. 455, 85 N. E. 2d 629 and Jones v. Cary (1941), 219 Ind. 268, 37 N. E. 2d 944, we held that any error present in such questions and instructions which might have erroneously imputed to the jury knowledge of the appellants’ insurance was rendered harmless as the jury could have acquired such a knowledge through questions which were proper and through the common knowledge of the fact of insurance.
Therefore, there was no reversible error in regard to such questions and instructions.
Petition for re-hearing denied.
Note. — Reported in 215 N. E. 2d 42. Rehearing denied reported in 217 N. E. 2d 859.