Court Opinion

ID: 9448536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:38:48.839136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:28.162283
License: Public Domain

SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Judge Kiley recognizes that there was evidence to support two instructions tendered by plaintiff which would have informed the jury of the duty of an operator of a motor vehicle to maintain a reasonable lookout for “other traffic on the highway” and that failure to do so would be negligence. He admits that the district court erred in rejecting these instructions, and I agree with that conclusion.
However, with such evidence admittedly in the record, the answers made by the jury to three special interrogatories, referring to the movement of decedent’s car into the “wrong” lane and back into the “right” lane, indicate that the ultimate question of which driver caused the collision presented to the jury a particularly difficult question. Therefore plaintiff was entitled to have the law applicable to that situation presented to the jury in the two instructions which were rejected by the court. I agree with Judge Kiley that the rejection was error but I do not agree that it was not prejudicial. It destroyed plaintiff’s chance for recovery. It left the jury groping in the dark as to the law applicable to a sensitive part of the case. The answers to the interrogatories are not inconsistent with a verdict for plaintiff.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.