Court Opinion

ID: 9773026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:35:19.934633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:49.755892
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
concurring.
I wholly agree with the opinion of Chief Justice Higgins. I write in response to Judge Welliver.
I would very much like to see a modification of Rule 70.03, to clear up any misunderstanding as to counsel’s obligation. The principal opinion, however, is wholly consistent with Rule 70.03. There is no error in the instructions given. The only complaint was about a matter of form, as to duplicating instructions submitted by co-defendants. The court properly holds that such duplication should not take place in the future.
Our objective should not be to promote tradeoffs between plaintiffs’ lawyers and defendants’ lawyers.1 We should strive for a procedural system which promotes fair trials and minimum opportunity for error. A reversal because of something which could have been corrected if it had been timely noted has no place in an enlightened procedural system. I cannot believe that plaintiff’s able counsel perceived an instructional problem which he considered disadvantageous to his client, but did not speak up. He was trying the case to the jury, not to the court of appeals. It is more reasonable to assume that he did not sense prejudice until he was casting around for error after being disappointed in the verdict.
A litigant has a substantial interest in a favorable verdict, and a new trial should be ordered only when substantial prejudice is demonstrated. Rule 84.13(b). The present verdict shows on its face that the duplicating instructions could not have affected it.

. I cannot see that MAI and present Rule 70.03 were parts of a tradeoff. Specific contemporaneous objections to instructions have not been required since 1947. See § 510.210, RSMo 1978; 2 Carr, Missouri Civil Procedure, 1952 pocket part.