Court Opinion

ID: 9541100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:22:49.744895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:34.476715
License: Public Domain

*287O’Connor, J.,
dissenting: I join in the foregoing dissent, but wish to make these additional observations.
This case demonstrates the untenable position in which a jury is placed in the trial of a typical automobile negligence action. In one breath the jurors are told by the trial court they may use that knowledge and experience they possess with mankind generally. As suggested in the majority opinion, this would include the fact that most people carry automobile liability insurance and that attorneys are entitled to be paid for their services. Yet, in the next breath, the trial court, as well as the majority of this court, concludes that because the jurors discussed the possibility of insurance and the matter of attorney’s fees there was misconduct prejudicing defendant’s substantial rights. Such an approach, I submit, is unrealistic and places the law out of tune with the times. Liability insurance has become so commonplace as to constitute a way of life for the traveling public. Jurors cannot be expected to decide cases in a vacuum, wholly disregarding the facts of life in the business world of which they are a part. The result reached by the majority renders suspect virtually every verdict for damages in this type of lawsuit.
A study of the decisions cited in both the majority and dissenting opinions will disclose the difficulty encountered by the courts in attempting to resolve the elusive question of prejudice in a particular case where, either during trial or during the jury’s deliberations, insurance reared its ugly head. In my view, the whole problem could be alleviated to a great extent if trial courts were required to inform the jury that whether or not a defendant carried liability insurance had no bearing on any of the issues of the case, including the amount of damages that might be awarded. An appropriate instruction in this vein would at least put the subject of insurance in its proper perspective. At the same time, prejudice would be effectively forestalled by emphasizing to the jurors that they must refrain from any consideration or speculation about insurance in arriving at a verdict.
Fatzer, J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.