Court Opinion

ID: 9792288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:26:37.382204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:41.747334
License: Public Domain

NAKAYAMA, Justice,
concurring and dissenting, with whom WEIL, Circuit Judge, joins.
I concur in the majority opinion except as to part III.A.2.b. Because I believe that under these circumstances the court should not recognize as plain and reversible error the trial court’s failure to give a jury instruction explaining the meaning of legal causation, I respectfully dissent from part III. A.2.b.
The plain error doctrine represents a departure from the normal rules of waiver that govern appellate review, ie., that a party who invites error in the trial court waives the right to have the error considered on appeal. See Chung v. Kaonohi Center Co., 62 Haw. 694, 603, 618 P.2d 283, 290 (1980); Earl M. Jorgensen Co. v. Mark Constr., Inc., 56 Haw. 466, 475-76, 540 P.2d 978, 985 (1975). The doctrine rests on a simple equitable proposition: the consequences of the ordinary rule of waiver can be severe and where it would result in a miscarriage of justice, the rule will not be followed. See State v. Fox, 70 Haw. 46, 56 n. 2, 760 P.2d 670, 676 n. 2 (1988) (“In civil cases, the plain error rule is only invoked when ‘justice so requires.’ ”) (quoting Bertelmann v. Taas Assoc., 69 Haw. 95, 103, 735 P.2d 930, 935 (1987)); accord Chung, 62 Haw. at 603, 618 P.2d at 290; Turner v. Willis, 59 Haw. 319, 324, 582 P.2d 710, 714 (1978).
Because the plain error doctrine is based on notions of equity and justice, it follows that the party on whose behalf the doctrine is invoked must satisfy the age-old maxim of jurisprudence that those “who seek equity must do equity.” In other words, the court should not call upon its equitable powers in the name of justice to benefit a party who comes before the court with “unclean hands.” In my view, the majority fails to heed that sensible rule.
The majority acknowledges that during the settlement of the jury instructions, the City requested the standard jury instruction defining legal causation in terms of the “substantial factor” test. Majority at 287 & n. 6, 884 P.2d at 350 & n. 6. That instruction properly stated the law. Id. at 288-89, 884 P.2d at 351-52. Montalvo did not submit his own instruction. Apparently sensing an opportunity to gain an advantage because there was no other instruction defining legal causation, the City then withdrew its obviously correct instruction and submitted a plainly incorrect one in its stead. Id. at 287 & 289, 884 P.2d at 350 & 352. There can be no doubt that the City did so because it believed, correctly or incorrectly, that the second instruction was significantly more favorable to it.
The City’s gambit failed when the trial court rejected the substituted instruction. The failure of the trial court to give the correct “substantial factor” instruction was a direct result of the City’s tactical maneuvering. Now, having lost at trial, the City comes before this court and asks us, in the interests of justice, to reverse the jury’s verdict based on the trial court’s “plain error” in failing to give a legal causation instruction. In my view, because its misguided games-playing induced the error in the first place, the City forfeited any equitable claim it might otherwise have had to request that the court invoke the plain error doctrine.
Remarkably, the majority dismisses the City’s role in causing the error as “unfortunate and misdirected” but “not outcome dis-positive!,]” asserting that
[t]he goal of preserving the integrity of the jury system far outweighs any argument that a party, who withdraws a crucial instruction, invited error and that, thus, any adverse verdict against such party should be affirmed as an appropriate sanction. The public’s confidence in the jury system *305obviously will not be enhanced by such a result.
Majority at 291, 884 P.2d at 354. I have my doubts about whether the public’s confidence in the jury system is undermined by requiring parties to live with the results of errors that they invited, even if the errors go to “crucial” matters. In fact, the idea that parties must bear the cost of their own mistakes at trial is a central presupposition of our adversarial system of justice. Fox, 70 Haw. at 55, 760 P.2d at 675.
Assuming, however, that there is some reason for concern about the public’s confidence in the jury system, I am -willing to accept, as a general matter, that an appellate court may notice plain error when the trial court fails to give an instruction on an issue that is central to the matter being tried. But it should do so only when “justice so requires.” Bertelmann, 69 Haw. at 103, 735 P.2d at 935. I strongly disagree that justice requires us to notice plain and reversible error in a case where the error was caused by a party’s self-interested tactical maneuvering. Indeed, to my mind, justice requires that we not recognize plain error in such a situation.1 To the extent that public confidence in the integrity of the jury system is the issue, I submit that rewarding a party for its gamesmanship by reversing a jury’s unfavorable verdict has a far more deleterious and lasting impact on the public's confidence in the system than does forcing a party to live with the results of the trial errors that its machinations caused.
In mechanically applying a “three-pronged test” for noticing plain error, the majority has lost sight of the sine qua non to the plain error doctrine—that it is to be invoked only when “justice so requires.” Given the circumstances under which the City induced the trial court’s instructional error, justice does not require us to recognize plain error. I therefore dissent from part IIIA..2.b. of the majority’s opinion.

. It is worth noting that none of the cases the majority relies on to support its conclusion that the failure to give a legal causation instruction amounts to plain error requiring reversal involved the sort of instructional games-playing present in this case.