Court Opinion

ID: 9763875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:59:29.83528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:50.589492
License: Public Domain

HYDE, Presiding Judge.
I concur in the opinion of WESTHUES, J., herein and in the ruling that Instruction 1 is prejudicially erroneous for the reason stated. However, since this case must be retried, I feel it is advisable to state my view that submitting failure to have a car under control submits nothing but general negligence and gives the widest kind of roving commission. Furthermore, I do not think that this instruction could be construed as attempting to submit failure to stop, slacken speed or swerve, and plaintiff’s brief says it does not; but if it is so construed it does not do so properly and clearly. In Annin v. Jackson, 340 Mo. 331, 100 S.W.2d 872, 875, we said of a similar instruction (therein set out) that we were of the opinion the negligence “was *607submitted as general”; that “the term ‘control’ as used in the pleading and in the instruction was used — ostensibly so to the jury — in a collective sense as embracing all the various factual elements and circumstances brought out in the evidence”; and that “there was no direction as to what acts were for consideration in either behalf in determining negligence vel non.” The judgment was reversed and the cause remanded because of failure to submit specific acts of negligence. We said a similar instruction in Carson v. Evans, 351 Mo. 376, 173 S.W.2d 30, 31, was erroneous “because it failed to submit specific acts of negligence.” Likewise, in Rosenkoetter v. Fleer, Mo.Sup., 155 S.W.2d 157, 160, on authority of Annin v. Jackson, supra, we held a similar instruction to be “submitting general negligence only” and reversed and remanded. See also Vogelgesang v. Waelder, Mo.App., 238 S.W.2d 849, 856.
It is true that in Lee v. Liberty Bell Oil Co., Mo.Sup., 291 S.W.2d 132, the main instruction contained such an alternative submission, which I think made the instruction technically incorrect; but the instruction was approved because it did fully submit plaintiff’s theory of the case to the jury (with a detailed hypothesization of facts) and because there was “no dispute about most of the facts and circumstances surrounding the collision.” See also Johnson v. Flex-O-Lite Mfg. Corp., Mo.Sup., 314 S.W.2d 75, holding such an instruction improper but not prejudicial in that case because there was a full hypothesization of the facts in another verdict directing instruction and because instructions given at the defendant’s request tended to cure the error. There was no other hypothesization in Instruction 1 herein as to facts upon which the liability of defendant Seb-ben was based; nor was there anything in any instructions requested by him to cure this error or to submit any theory of specific negligence.