Court Opinion

ID: 9754992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:20:19.770038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:01.309483
License: Public Domain

WATHEN, C.J.,
with whom RUDMAN and DANA, JJ., join, concurring.
[¶ 40] I concur in the result, but I reach that result on different grounds. It is problematic whether a judgment as a matter of' law in favor of a plaintiff in a negligence action can ever be upheld in the absence of a testimonial confession by the defendant or an admission by counsel. See Lewis v. Knowlton, 1997 ME 12, 688 A.2d 912. In my judgment, defense counsel in this case admitted liability in his opening statement when he told the jury that Wal-Mart had never denied liability and that the only issue concerned the amount of fair and just compensation. Having made that statement, he then sought to try the issue of liability behind the jurors’ backs. To countenance such a strategy would be to ignore the requirement of the Maine Bar Rules that trial counsel employ “such means only as are consistent with truth, and shall not seek to mislead the ... jury ... by any artifice or false statement of fact or law.” M. Bar R. 3.7(e)(l)(i). I would affirm the judgment on the basis that defense counsel admitted liability.