Court Opinion

ID: 9789662
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:39:53.025605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:23.907387
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
It may be that it is late in the term, for which reason my powers of comprehension are not at full strength — which I say in view of my inability to agree with the majority's express approval of the closing summation of Shockey’s counsel as set out in the majority opinion at p. 65. Here was a case where any jury would arrive at a very substantial damage figure. The jury never had to reach that question, which was contained in questions numbered 26 and 27 of the special verdict form, because it was instructed to not proceed beyond the first four questions if all were answered “no.” Those questions were as follows:
QUESTIONS NO. 1. Was defendant Shockey negligent in connection with the fryer?
ANSWER: Yes_ No X
QUESTION NO. 2. Was the fryer manufactured or sold by defendant Shockey in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to person or property?
ANSWER: Yes_ No X
QUESTION NO. 3. Did defendant Shockey breach any implied warranty of merchantability in connection with the fryer?
ANSWER: Yes_ No X
QUESTION NO. 4. Did defendant Shockey breach any implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose in connection with the fryer?
ANSWER: Yes_ No X
If you answered “No” to each question in this section, then sign the verdict form and inform the bailiff that you are done. If you answered “Yes” to one or more of the questions in this section, you must answer all of the other questions to which the form directs you. R., pp. 381-82.
Argument of defense counsel, coupled with Given Instruction No. 53, majority opinion, p. 63, causes me considerable worry that the jury was confused or misled, .or confused and misled. The majority approves the instruction as well as the use made of it by defense counsel. Its theme appears to be that the jury should be made aware of the financial effect which its answer to the 26 questions will have on the parties whose negligence is at issue. But, Ore-Ida, upon whom Shockey would place all of the blame, was not even a party, and it will not be affected in any manner by those answers. It has settled its obligations to *199Mary Luna under the Workmen’s Compensation Law. Unlike the phantom defendants of years gone by, Ore-Ida is a known (non)defendant. How sweet it must have been for defense counsel, armed with Instruction No. 53, to have liberty to urge upon the jury: If Ore-Ida can do all those [negligent] things, and Shockey has to pay the whole freight, that doesn’t encourage Ore-Ida to be safe. If you want to send a message to Ore-Ida, then what you ought to do is find 100 percent cause of this accident on the part of Ore-Ida. Which is precisely what the jury did do, and which is readily discernible. Of 100 percent of liability, Shockey was quickly assessed none. One hundred take away zero leaves one hundred percent for Ore-Ida, ytrhich corporation was not a party in court defending itself. The special verdict form would have allowed the jury, had it not been directed to discontinue answering the court’s questions, to pass upon the assumption of the risk by Mary Luna, and the negligence of Mary Luna. I submit that the record and the law would not have sustained a jury finding that she was negligent, or that she assumed the risk of getting burned by an occurrence which was not of her doing, and that the jury would have totally absolved her. Again, 100 percent of total fault, take away Mary Luna’s zero percent, leaves 100 percent for Ore-Ida.
This jury was by judge and defense counsel invited to return a swift verdict — a swift message for Ore-Ida, and it did so. BUT, as Paul Harvey says, in a few minutes, I will return with the rest of the story.
And here it is. That jury, which the majority says was only being properly enlightened, was never told that its message to Ore-Ida was meaningless and a futile gesture — that Ore-Ida’s liability to Mary Luna was only that which would accrue against it under the laws of workmen’s compensation. Nor was the jury told that under the case law of this state,1 whatever she might recover from Shockey’s would have deducted from it all that she had received from her workmen’s compensation coverage under her employment with Ore-Ida.
The record probably indicates that Ore-Ida should have borne more of the fault than Shockey’s, but nothing justified anyone in suggesting that Shockey’s fault was at two percent, and Mary Luna’s fault was at one percent. The trial court, in denying a motion for summary judgment, ruled that Shockey’s causative fault was a jury question. The jury instead sent a message to Ore-Ida.
Unlike the Paul Harvey stories, the jury got only half the story. The majority may be on the right track in wanting juries to be informed — but the destination will not be reached until the jury is wholly informed rather than supplied with partial confusing disinformation, as was done here.

. Tucker v. Union Oil Co. of California, [Collier Carbon and Chemical Corp., Dover Corp., P-T Coupling Co., Inc., E.D. Bullard Co., Paul Roberts Co., Graybill Wholesale Co., and Intermountain Equipment Co.], 100 Idaho 590, 603 P.2d 156 (1979). In that case, the plaintiffs’ assessed proportionate share of fault was ten percent. His employer, Feed Services, Inc., was a nonparty to the action. It was assessed 30 percent fault, and Collier Carbon was awarded the balance of 60 percent fault. The trial court, The Honorable Edward J. Lodge, did not favor Collier Carbon’s counsel with an instruction no. 53. Had the court done so, defense counsel would have had a heyday, as here.