Court Opinion

ID: 9686897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:10:56.512125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:22.819587
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent from Division I and from the result because under this record the case should not have been submitted to the jury on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. The majority passes this off by saying it was a “close issue.” Really there was no issue.
Any doubt about this was resolved by what happened during jury deliberations. The jury first returned a verdict saying it found for the plaintiff but “we find the defendant not guilty of negligence.”
In the face of that finding, it was improper to send the jury back to deliberate further. The only conclusion the jury could draw was that it should find negligence— which, of course, it promptly did.
None of this would have occurred if the court, as it should have done, had refused to submit the res ipsa count.