Court Opinion

ID: 9528028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:36:30.700744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:24.505521
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I would affirm the judgment entered on the jury verdict in favor of defendant.
The majority opinion rests upon the premise that the jury was required to ac-. cept as true the testimony given by plaintiff and his witnesses. Defendant’s denial that plaintiff was injured as a result of the February 22, 1975, accident placed upon plaintiff the burden of proving that issue by a preponderance of the evidence. The jurors were correctly instructed that they were the sole judges of all questions of fact, of the credibility of the witnesses, and of the weight to be given to the testimony of the witnesses. Further, they were correctly instructed that in weighing the evidence they were entitled to consider the common knowledge they possessed, together with their ordinary experiences and observations in their daily affairs of life. Finally, the jurors were instructed that they were not bound by the opinions expressed by the expert witnesses and that they were free to disregard such opinions entirely if they should conclude that the opinions were not sound or were outweighed by other evidence. These are hardly exceptionable propositions of law, and in the light of all of the evidence we should not be surprised that the jury should have applied them in such a way as to conclude that plaintiff had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the injury he complained of was caused by the February 22, 1975, accident. That an appellate court should not follow these precepts is surprising, however, given, the great deference that this court has recently expressed towards jury verdicts. See, e. g., Fjerstad v. Sioux Valley
Hospital, 291 N.W.2d 786 (S.D.1980); Lewis v. Storms, 290 N.W.2d 494 (S.D.1980); Mid-America Marketing Corp. v. Dakota Industries, Inc., 289 N.W.2d 797 (S.D.1980). Had the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff, much of the analysis of the medical testimony set forth in the majority opinion would be relevant to a discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. In view of the verdict actually returned, however, I am at a loss to understand why on review this testimony should be accorded a credence that the jury implicitly found it did not have.