Court Opinion

ID: 9639770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:47:09.046458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.553460
License: Public Domain

SOPER, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part).
Any one who reads the statements of the Yorks — husband, wife and daughter-made shortly after the accident, and compares them with the testimony of the declarants in the suits that followed, is bound to notice a decided change of attitude. The burden of the statements was that the accident was inevitable, while the tendency of the testimony was to show such negligence on the part of the husband as would enable the wife to collect damages under his insurance policy. It is a close decision that the evidence of failure on his part to cooperate with the Insurance Company in the defense of the suit of the wife was not strong enough to justify a directed verdict in its favor, but I agree that it was a question for the jury, with the added comment that a witness is duty bound to tell the truth, although it may not be to his wife’s advantage, even when the matter in issue is .a claim against an insurance company.
There is, however, no doubt in my mind that the Insurance Company was prejudiced by the rulings of the court. The Insurance Company was contending that the husband, in collusion with his wife, and daughter, had not made a sincere defense to his wife’s suit, while the Yorks were asserting that this contention was so utterly .baseless that the making of it was an act of bad faith on the company’s part. Is it not perfectly clear that these opposing contentions were so closely related to one and the same issue that a misdirection by the judge as to one of them was bound to influence the jury? The judge told the jury in effect that there was evidence tending to show that the failure of the company to compromise and settle the judgment obtained by the wife was- a breach of good faith on its part. We are all agreed that there was no such evidence. Does it not inevitably follow that the mistake of the judge had a prejudicial effect on the minds of the jury? The refusal to allow a witness for the company to explain why it did not put York on the stand in the trial of the suit brought against him by his wife, after the failure to call him had been brought to the attention of the jury, was of course erroneous. The contrast between the relatively full exposition of Mrs. York’s side of the case with the meager description of the company’s defense is also noticeable. These latter matters might perhaps be justifiably overlooked, were it not for the substantial error above noted. Coupled with it there resulted a prejudice to the Insurance Company that calls for a reversal of the entire judgment. The reversal of the judgment, insofar as it was based on a supposed lack of good faith on the part of the Insurance Company, does not go far enough.