Court Opinion

ID: 9655809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:22:48.797659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:22.015827
License: Public Domain

SICKEL, J.
The question before this court on rehearing is no longer one of disposition, but it is one of precedent.
At the close of all the evidence defendants made a motion for a directed verdict on the ground that there is no evidence in the entire record from which the jury could find defendants were guilty of negligence proximately causing the plaintiff’s damage and that plaintiff was “* * * himself guilty of negligence more than slight * * *.” The motion was denied. The court instructed the jury on the rule of safety, which is not questioned, and also on the rule of assumption as follows: “* * * and in the absence of reasonable grounds *119to think otherwise, it is not negligence to assume that he is not exposed to danger which can come to him only from violation of law or duty by such other person”. The former opinion of this court quoted the above instruction and stated [55 N.W.2d 611]: “No exception was taken to this instruction and it is therefore the law of this case.”
Appellants’ petition for rehearing makes this statement: “So far as we are able to discover, the suggestion that the law of this case under the circumstances of this appeal and on this record is established by the Court’s instructions is an innovation of the writer of the opinion and we deferentially but most strenuously insist that such statement was ill-considered, is not the law, and that this Court ought in justice and good conscience to recede from it”.
Appellants did not object nor except to this instruction. The question of correctness of the instruction was not presented by the motion for judgment n. o. v.; no motion for new trial was made; neither was the giving of this instruction assigned as error in this case. Appellants made no contention in their brief that the instruction quoted above was erroneous, but on the contrary conceded in the brief that: “* * * a driver may not in all cases be guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law in failing to drive within the range of his vision, and that certain situations may call for exceptions to the general rule. Such an exception was recognized by our Court in Drake v. City of Mobridge (1932), 60 S.D. 79, 243 N.W. 429, in which the Court held that the question as to a driver’s contributory negligence was properly submitted to the jury where the plaintiff in watching other traffic on the street failed to see and drove into a hole which had been made in the street for the purpose of cleaning out a culvert”. Appellants' distinguished this case from the Drake case saying that the facts in this case did not constitute an exception to the safety rule because of the greater discernibility of the truck.
The principal issue before the circuit court and in this court was whether the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence more than slight for failure to use reasonable care in discovering the danger and in avoiding the collision. *120The rule of safety and the rule of assumption are guides for determining the exercise of due care. Each is complementary to the other when applicable, and in my opinion both instructions should have been given in this case though objections and exceptions had been taken.
On the method of preserving the right to review on appeal the giving or refusing of instructions SDC 33.1318 provides: “No grounds of objection or exception to the giving or the refusing of an instruction shall be considered either on motion for new trial or appeal, unless same was presented to the Court upon the ‘settlement’ of such instruction.” The above rule was adopted by this court and became effective July 1, 1919, and has been in effect without amendment ever since that date. The rule was apparently overlooked in deciding the case of Federal Land Bank v. Houck, 68 S.D. 449, 4 N.W.2d 213, and in Peterson v. Great American Ins. Co., 74 S.D. 334, 52 N.W.2d 479. The case of Schmidt v. Carpenter, 27 S.D. 412, 131 N.W. 723, 728, was decided by this court in 1911, eight years before the rule quoted above was adopted by this court, but as I read the-opinion in that case it is consistent with the rule. The Schmidt case was an action for damages on the ground of negligence. Defendant denied negligence and claimed contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff. At the close of all the evidence defendant made a motion for a directed verdict on the ground that “The testimony is insufficient to warrant a verdict against defendant”. The motion was denied. The principal issue was whether or not the evidence was sufficient to prove that a negligent employee was acting within the scope of his authority and that defendant was therefore responsible for the employee’s negligence. The court instructed the jury on this issue without objection or exception by defendant. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and judgment was entered thereon. Thereafter defendant made a motion for a new trial in which it claimed that the instruction referred to above was erroneous. The court refused to consider this contention on the ground that no objection or exception to the instruction had been taken by defendant. Then defendant claimed the right to have this issue considered on the ground that it had been presented to the court on the motion for a *121directed verdict. This the circuit court refused to do, and on appeal this court said: “Appellant in his brief contends that the motion for direction of verdict upon the ground of insufficiency of the evidence and the motion for a new trial upon the ground of insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict necessarily present the same proposition. However, this is not correct. On a motion for direction of a verdict with proper specifications as to insufficiency of the evidence, the correct rule of law must necessarily be applied in testing the sufficiency of the evidence; but upon a motion for new trial upon the ground of insufficiency of evidence to sustain the verdict the law as laid down by the court in its instructions not excepted to, whether they state the rule of law correctly or incorrectly, become the law of the case, and the sufficiency of the evidence can only be tested by the rule in the instructions.”
Certainly, on motion for a directed verdict supported by proper specifications as to insufficiency of the evidence the court must determine and apply the correct rules of law in testing the sufficiency of the evidence, and if the motion is granted and judgment is entered thereon the correctness of the rules of law applied by the circuit court in granting the motion is debatable on appeal. However, when the motion for a directed verdict is denied and the trial proceeds to judgment on the verdict of the jury the instructions become the law of the case, subject to timely objection and exception.
The motion for directed verdict having been denied, and no objection or exception to the instruction in question having been presented to the circuit court on the settlement of the instructions, none may be considered in this court on appeal. I, therefore, agree that we should adhere to the views expressed in the original opinion.