Court Opinion

ID: 9452246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:34:39.676294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:08.257202
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with everything Judge Chilson says in his excellent treatment of this extremely close case, except the crucial conclusion that the evidence is insufficient to “ * * * support an inference that the agreement to share expenses was a motivating factor in the defendant’s undertaking to transport the plaintiff * * * from Denver to Cheyenne and return.”
Viewing the evidence most favorably to the plaintiff, I am unable to agree that all reasonable men would conclude that the agreement was not a motivating factor causing Lt. Loehrer to change his mind as he did. In cases like these involving the probing of men’s minds to ascertain motivation we should be slow to preempt the trial judge’s deliberate decision to submit this subjective determination to the jury. Certainly we should not superimpose our judgment on that of the trial court unless we can say from our objective appraisal of all the facts and circumstances that his judgment on the sufficiency of the evidence to go to the *889jury was clearly unwarranted. I. e. see High Voltage Engineering Corp. v. Pierce, 10 Cir., 359 F.2d 33; United States v. Hess, 10 Cir., 341 F.2d 444.
I would sustain the trial court’s decision to submit the case to the j'ury.