Court Opinion

ID: 9671107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:31:18.48803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:07.486563
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Norvell,
dissenting
In my opinion the trial court’s judgment cannot be salvaged by an application of the harmless error rule.
The plaintiff was denied a recovery because of the jury’s findings absolving defendants of negligence and convicting plaintiff of contributory negligence. The majority holds, and I agree, that improper evidence was received by the trial court. If the judgment rested alone upon the findings that defendant was free from negligence, I doubt if anyone would seriously contend that a reversal should not be ordered, for the improper evidence bore directly upon issues inquiring as to whether or not defendant had erected proper signs and barricades and maintained a suitable roadway for the detour, adequate guardrails, flares and the like. However the jury found plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence in (a) that “as he was approaching the detour at the time and place in question, (he) was driving the automobile at a greater speed than a person of ordinary prudence would drive under the same or similar circumstances (b) that “as he was approaching the detour at the time and place in question, (he) failed to keep such a lookout as a person of ordinary prudence would have kept under the same or similar circumstances,” and (c) that “as he was approaching the detour at the time and place in question, (he) failed to have the automobile he was driving under such control as a person of ordinary prudence would have had under the same or similar circumstances.”1
There was no finding that plaintiff had violated a penal statute so contributory negligence per se is not in the case.
*262When we examine the issues inquiring as to defendants’ alleged negligence, we also encounter the phrase, “at the time and in the place in question,” and, of course, under the standard of a person of ordinary prudence, the term negligence by definition embraces the element of the “same, or similar circumstances.” To my mind, no logical distinction can be drawn between negligence issues relating to the defendant and those referring to the plaintiff. These issues as to either party are not determined independent of time, place and circumstances. How can we say that the factual elements such as lights, warning devices, signs, etc. which enter into and determine the jury’s conception of the “place in question” and the basic “circumstances” of the case have only an indirect insubstantial and inferential bearing upon the contributory negligence issues? Under the facts of this case, as pointed out by the Court of Civil Appeals, the testimony of Farias which tends to absolve defendants of negligence, likewise tends to convict the plaintiff of contributory negligence. I am in full accord with the discussion of the Court of Civil Appeals upon the question of harmless error rule as it applies to this case and hence need not farther prolong this opinion.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals and accordingly respectfully dissent from the order entered by the Court.
Opinion delivered January 29, 1958.
Rehearing overruled March 5, 1958.

. The majority does not rest its decision upon the jury’s answer to Special Issue No. 32, and I will not discuss it other than to say that here also I am in accord with the holding of the Court of Civil Appeals.