Court Opinion

ID: 9652887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:34:28.093057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:54.868639
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In reversing the trial court for failure to submit the case to the jury on the doctrine of last clear chance, the majority take judicial notice of a fact which was disputed below and of which the trial court was not asked to take judicial notice. Because this view is so completely repugnant to my conception of the law of judicial notice, I must respectfully dissent.
It is my view, first, that since the question whether the streetcar was equipped with a gong was a disputed fact, the trial court could not take judicial notice of it; and, second, in any event the court was not required to take judicial notice of the fact and so instruct the jury, unless requested to do so. The case having been tried on the theory that the question whether the streetcar was equipped with a gong was not an established fact, or one of which the trial court must take judicial notice, the case cannot be decided on that theory in this court.
It is agreed that we have an inattentive plaintiff, as contemplated by Section 480 of Restatement of the Law of Torts; that is, a case wherein the plaintiff has negligently placed himself in a perilous position of which he is unaware, but of which the defendant is aware. And, to further define the issues, it is agreed that in these circumstances it was the duty of the motorman to utilize. with reasonable care and competence his then existing ability to avoid harming the plaintiff.
Only two things are suggested which the motorman could have done in the circumstances, (1) stop his car before he reached the plaintiff, and (2) warn plaintiff by sounding a gong in order that he might extricate himself from the perilous situation. The undisputed evidence is that at the instant the motorman first saw and realized that the plaintiff was inattentive and therefore unlikely to discover his peril in time to avoid the harm, he applied his emergency airbrakes, thereby bringing his car to a stop in the shortest possible distance. If this was the extent of the defendant’s “existing ability to avoid harming the plaintiff” there is nothing to submit to the jury on the last clear chance doctrine.
The case was tried and submitted to the jury on this theory. The trial court recognized that under both Sections 479 and 480 of the Restatement of the Law of Torts, the defendant was required to exercise vigilance and use whatever means at his command to avoid injury after plaintiff’s peril had been discovered. The court, however, observed that under the uncon-tradicted evidence the motorman applied his brakes promptly after discovering the plaintiff and that since there was no evidence in the case that the streetcar was equipped with a gong, the defendant had exercised every means at his command to avoid harming plaintiff.
At this point in the record, counsel for plaintiff stated that he had asked permission to reopen the case in order to prove that the streetcar was equipped with a gong. Whereupon the trial court also stated for the record that while in chambers plaintiff had stated that if permitted to reopen he would prove that the streetcar was equipped with a gong by the testimony of counsel for defendant, who had stated that “he had no knowledge about it”; that when the court convened plaintiff did not ask leave to reopen the case for the purpose of presenting any further testimony. Thus, it seems plain enough that the question whether the streetcar was equipped with a gong was a disputed fact, upon which plaintiff had the opportunity to either submit direct proof, or if he chose to do so, ask the court to take judicial notice of the fact — he did neither. He now asks the appellate court to take judicial notice of a crucial fact on which he neither offered proof nor of which he asked the trial court to take judicial notice.
If plaintiff expected to rely upon the doctrine of last clear chance, it was incumbent upon him to affirmatively prove facts entitling him to an instruction on that issue. Surely the burden is not upon the defendant to affirmatively prove facts which will disentitle plaintiff to the benefit of the rule in the absence of some evidence on this point. If I read aright the *814statement of the majority, it is to the effect that the defendant had the affirmative burden to establish that the streetcar was not equipped with a warning device; this in the face of the total absence of any evidence by plaintiff on this contested point. No authority is cited for this statement, and I have found none.
I agree with my brethren that courts may take judicial notice of all facts which are generally known and accepted, but if there is any possibility of dispute, the fact cannot be judicially noticed; if there is any doubt whatever either as to the fact itself or as to it being a matter of common knowledge, evidence should be. required. See Communist Party of the United States v. Peek, 20 Cal.2d 536, 127 P.2d 889, 895; Sherman & Redfield on Negligence, Vol. 1, p. 174; 23 Words & Phrases, Perm.Ed., pp. 294, 295; Montgomery-Ward v. Peaster, Tex.Civ.App., 178 S.W. 2d 302, 307; State v. Finch, 128 Kan. 665, 280 P. 910, 66 A.L.R. 1369; Wigmore on Evidence, Vol. 5, Section 2565, et seq.; Amer.Juris, on Evidence, Vol. 20, Section 16. I seriously doubt the propriety of the court taking judicial notice that all streetcars are equipped with a gong when the question is a disputed fact. But, conceding that the court was authorized to take judicial notice that the streetcar was equipped with a gong, it was not legally bound to do so.
There is a real distinction between judicial notice and judicial knowledge, says Justice Cardozo in Shapleigh v. Mier, 299 U.S. 468, 57 S.Ct. 261, 81 L.Ed. 355, 113 A.L.R. 253. The distinction is made plain and the rule governing the application of the doctrine of judicial notice is fully treated in an annotation in 113 A.L.R. 258. The court is bound to take judicial notice of the law, such as a treaty, or other official documents. See New York Indians v. United States, 170 U.S. 1, 18 S.Ct. 531, 42 L.Ed. 927; Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202, 214, 11 S.Ct. 80, 34 L.Ed. 691; Strickland v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 5 Cir., 140 F.2d 83, 86. But, it is not required to take judicial notice of a fact sua sponte without suggestion of counsel. Wigmore says that “judicial notice being a dispensation of one party from producing evidence, it would seem that the party must in point of form make a request for it.” 5 Wigmore Evidence, 2nd Ed., Sec. 2568. “The explanation is that facts susceptible of notice are nevertheless matters of evidence, and an appellate tribunal can only review evidence considered by the court below.” 1 Jones, 2nd Ed., Sec. 474.
We all agree that the question whether the sounding of a gong would have awakened the inattentive plaintiff in time to have prevented the accident wa§t a factual question for the jury, if presented on the record. The plaintiff requested the court to instruct the jury in effect that if they found that the motorman could have avoided the accident by stopping the streetcar or by ringing the gong, plaintiff was entitled to recover, but he did not request the court to instruct the jury that they could take judicial notice of the fact that the streetcar was equipped with a gong. When the absence of any evidence to the effect that the streetcar was equipped with a gong was brought squarely to plaintiffs attention, he neither offered any evidence on that point, nor asked the court* to take judicial notice of it. The case was not tried on the theory that the court should take judicial notice that the streetcar was equipped with a gong and so instruct the jury on that fact, and it should not be tried on that theory here.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.