Court Opinion

ID: 9671371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:35:17.518997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:09.572655
License: Public Domain

Danhof, J.
(dissenting). I dissent and for the reasons hereinafter stated I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
This action arose out of an automobile accident in which defendant’s automobile struck plaintiffs’ automobile. A jury trial was held and the plaintiffs are appealing a judgment entered upon the jury’s finding of no cause for action. On appeal the plaintiffs have raised two issues. First, the refusal of the trial judge to charge the jury as requested by plaintiffs’ counsel. Second, allegedly improper remarks by defendant’s counsel injecting the issue of insurance into the case.
The plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury in conformity with the following requests which were made orally after the jury had been instructed:
“Mr. Goneh: I would like to see the court give a charge on duo-proximate cause or multiple proximate cause since there is an issue of whether or not the car could be co-responsible.
“I would like the court to give a charge on speed, on the road, weather and traffic conditions.”
The plaintiffs do not question the correctness of the charge as given and their requests for instructions were not timely, not in writing, and not specific. *403OCR 1963, 516.1 provides that requested instructions shall he submitted in writing at or before the close of the evidence. In this case the plaintiffs could have complied with the rule, hut instead relied on a belated oral request.
Orderly trial procedure demands that whenever possible things he done at the proper time. The trial judge is entitled to the opportunity to examine the requested charge. The opposing party also has this right. A party does not have the right to delay a request to charge in the hope that the jury will give it undue weight because it has been called to its attention in a supplemental instruction. In view of these considerations it is not surprising that appellate courts have been loath to reverse a judgment because of a refusal to grant a belated oral request to instruct. Peden v. Carpenter (1958), 352 Mich 604; Corpron v. Skiprick (1952), 334 Mich 311; Nezworski v. Mazanec (1942), 301 Mich 43.
The plaintiffs’ contention that counsel for the defendant improperly argued the question of insurance is also without merit. This claim is based on the fact that counsel for the defendant argued that the plaintiffs should have brought this action against the state accident fund and that he referred to his client as a simple, hard-working individual who was concerned about the outcome of the case.
Defense counsel contended that the plaintiffs should have brought their action against the accident fund as a part of his contention that the real cause of the accident- was a third automobile whose driver could not he located. Under the statute in force at the time of trial, MCLA § 257.1113 (Stat Ann 1968 Rev § 9.2813), the plaintiffs could have brought an action against the accident fund based on the negligence of the driver of the third car. Defense counsel’s remarks were a part of his contention that the *404third car was responsible for the accident and were not an improper reference to insurance. The extension of MCLA § 500.3030 (Stat Ann 1957 Eev § 24.13030) to the comments of plaintiffs’ counsel concerning the state accident fund are to my thinking unwarranted. The rationale behind this statute has in recent years been greatly impaired, and to extend it to the state accident claims fund perpetuates a fiction which by today’s standards needs re-examination.
Counsel for the plaintiffs made much of the fact that the defendant had paid for the damage done to the plaintiffs’ car and then had changed lawyers and denied liability. In replying to this attack on the defendant’s credibility, counsel for the defendant referred to his client as a simple, hard-working individual who had followed poor legal advice in paying for the damage of the car. Counsel for the plaintiffs was entitled to attack the defendant’s credibility and defendant’s counsel was entitled to defend his client.
Defense counsel’s statement that the outcome of the case was as important to his client as it was to the plaintiffs was not improper. Herman v. Ploszcsanski (1963), 369 Mich 252.