Court Opinion

ID: 9692205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:46:58.920451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:33.047452
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(concurring in reversal). I concur in reversal of defendant’s judgment non obstante vere-dicto but, although agreeing with Mr. Justice Dethmers’ conclusion and generally with his reasoning, I cannot sign his opinion.
As I read Justice Dethmers’ opinion, he implies that Mitcham v. City of Detroit, 355 Mich 182, held that, by cross-appealing from the trial court’s failure to grant its motion for directed verdict at the conclusion of plaintiff’s proofs, defendant preserved “its right to have the matter judged in this Court as of the time and state of the record when that first motion had been made.” It is quite true that the opinion signed by Justice Dethmers in that case so said, but that opinion was not the opinion of a majority of this Court. On the other hand, Mr. Justice Voelker’s majority opinion in Mitcham, describing *12the case as one in which onr version of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applied, held that defendant’s proofs, offered after denial of its motion for directed verdict, were subject to careful judicial scrutiny upon later renewal of defendant’s motion for directed verdict and upon this Court’s review. Mitcham v. City of Detroit, supra, pp 192, 193.
Granting that my difficulty with Justice Dethmers’ opinion goes to a collateral issue not essential to decision in this case, I deem it important to express my disapproval of what I consider to be an unwarranted modification of the salutary rule a majority of this Court so recently reaffirmed.
Subject to the foregoing, I concur in reversal and remand for entry of judgment for plaintiff on the jury’s verdict. Costs to plaintiff.
Black, Kavanagh, and Smith, JJ., concurred with Souris, J.
O’Hara, J., took no part in the decision of this case.