Court Opinion

ID: 9688358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:44:38.678469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:37.841098
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I reluctantly concur in that portion of the majority opinion which concludes that because the trial court refused to give an instruction on the theory of negligent en-trustment this case should be remanded for a new trial against Scheels. My reluctance is predicated on the fact that although the instruction was not given the case was argued to the jury on just such a theory and I have serious doubts that this jury would have decided the case any differently if the instruction had been given. However, a party is entitled to an instruction to support the party’s theory if there is evidence to support that theory. Mauch v. Manufacturer’s Sales & Service, Inc., 345 N.W.2d 338 (N.D.1984). Because the theory of negligent entrustment is different from ordinary negligence, and because there was evidence to support the theory, the plaintiff was entitled to an instruction on negligent entrustment pursuant to this court’s decision in Barsness v. General Diesel & Equipment Co., 383 N.W.2d 840 (N.D.1986).
Although no instruction on superseding cause was requested, and therefore none was rejected by the trial court, it seems apparent to me that if the trial court had given the negligent-entrustment instruction it may well have given an instruction on superseding cause. My understanding of the record is that the trial court viewed the case as an ordinary negligence case when the instruction on negligent entrustment was refused. I cannot discern that the trial court refused the negligent-entrustment instruction because an instruction on superseding cause had not also been requested.
I do not understand the majority opinion to require a new trial with regard to Kathryn. I agree that the proposed instruction on negligent entrustment could not have applied to her. Plaintiff purposely modified the Restatement language which was broad enough to have included Kathryn as a supplier to read that one “who sells” to another is subject to liability. Instructions that are submitted to the parties *15for exception and are not objected to after an attorney for the party has had them for a reasonably sufficient time to study them become the law of the case and any objections to them are waived. Jore v. Saturday Night Club, Inc., 227 N.W.2d 889 (N.D.1975). The same rationale should apply to instructions proposed by a party but rejected by the court, i.e., on appeal the party should be bound by the language of the proposed instructions. In view of the language which the plaintiff purposely proposed as contrasted with the language of the Restatement which was relied upon in Barsness, supra, I believe that as a matter of law the proposed instruction cannot be construed to be broad enough to constitute a triable claim against Kathryn. Furthermore, as the majority opinion notes, “No specific allegations of negligence or wrongful conduct were pled against Kathryn.” Kathryn was tried on the basis of ordinary negligence and her negligence was not determined to be the proximate cause of Steven’s injuries.
Thus there is no other basis for reversing and remanding for a new trial as to Kathryn. The majority opinion sustains the trial court on the other issues raised by plaintiff except that involving the instruction on assumption of risk. But, as the majority opinion observes at footnote 2, that issue was not a potential ground for reversal but is discussed only to prevent error from occurring at the trial on remand, the issue not having been raised in the plaintiffs motion for new trial as required by Andrews v. O’Hearn, 387 N.W.2d 716 (N.D.1986), and Nelson v. Trinity Medical Center, 419 N.W.2d 886 (N.D.1988).