Court Opinion

ID: 9590226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:52:46.912617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:05.639370
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the treatment in the majority opinion of the allegation of error with regard to the trial court’s instruction number 16. I believe such instruction had the effect of taking from the jury the question of contributory negligence.
Plaintiff relied on our holding in Flanagan v. Oklahoma Ry. Co., supra. The majority opinion says that the vice of the instruction in the Flanagan case was a misstatement of the plaintiff’s duty under the *331circumstances; while it is true that the court discussed this point, I am convinced that the opinion turned on the identical question involved in the case at hand. This is evidenced by the following' quotation from the Flanagan case, which immediately followed the quotation of the instruction concerned:
“This contention is well taken and must be sustained.
“We have many times held that an instruction that if a certain state of facts is found to exist such facts constitute contributory negligence was erroneous and constituted reversible error.” [201 Okl. 362, 206 P.2d 192.]
I think instruction 16 herein had precisely the same effect in the case at hand as instruction 15 had in the Flanagan case, and whether or not plaintiff’s duty was correctly outlined in the Flanagan case is immaterial to the issue here involved.
The following from Hugill v. Doty, 202 Okl. 391, 214 P.2d 257, 259, which has never been reversed, I believe to be particularly pertinent in the case at hand:
“Defendant places special emphasis on Wilson v. St. Louis-S. F. Ry. Co., 141 Okl. 108, 283 P. 999, 1001, as a case in which an instruction almost identical with the one involved was held proper. But the instruction, No. 20, which is set out in full in the opinion in that case, advised the jury that if it found that the deceased, before driving upon the defendant railway company’s tracks could have, with the exercise of ordinary care, seen the approaching train or heard it, and that he failed to look and listen ‘and failed to use the care that an ordinarily prudent person would have exercised under like circumstances, and you find that stick failure proximately contributed to his injury’ that plaintiff could not recover.
“It is to be noted that this instruction, like all others which we have found which were approved by this court left to the jury the question of whether the failure to look and listen was a failure to use the care which an ordinarily prudent person would have used under the same circumstances. In other words, it left to the jury the question of whether the failure of the injured party to look and listen, under all the facts and circumstances in the case, was negligence on his part. Instruction No. 15 in the instant case did not leave that question to the consideration of the jury, but told the jury that if plaintiff failed to keep a proper lookout he was guilty of negligence as a matter of law.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The majority opinion cites Clanton v. Chrisman, 174 Okl. 425, 51 P. 748, 749, as a case in which the omission of the- “proximate cause clause” was held not to be reversible error. But that case is not applicable here for the reason that the instruction under discussion concerned negligence of the defendant, not contributory negligence of the plaintiff. To further illustrate the difference, we quote the following from that case:
“It is only when the facts are not controverted, or whether controverted or not, when all men must draw the same conclusion from them, that the question of negligence becomes one of law for the court, and, when fair-minded men may honestly draw different conclusions, the question is always one of fact for the jury. * * * ”
I am in accord with the above statement with regard to negligence. But with regard to contributory negligence, our state constitution says:
“The defense of contributory negligence * * * shall, in all cases whatsoever be a question of fact, and shall, at all times, be left to the jury.”
I believe instruction 16 in the case at hand had the same effect as if the court had said to the jury, “If you find and believe from the evidence that (certain facts are true), then in that event you are instructed that the plaintiff cannot recover herein against the defendants and your verdict should deny recovery in favor of Squyres (because he would then be guilty of contributory negligence).”
I respectfully dissent.