Court Opinion

ID: 9553539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:31:28.248868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:33.315223
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
It is my firm conviction that there is ample justification in the evidence for the trial judge’s submission to the jury the issue of the defendant’s willful misconduct; and for the jury’s finding against him on that issue. I am similarly convinced that this reversal deprives the plaintiff of his right of trial by jury and unjustly takes from him a judgment that in fairness he is entitled to; and that this amounts to a wholly unwarranted intrusion into the well established prerogatives of the jury and of the trial court.
This court has many times reaffirmed the importance of the right of trial by jury; and of the prerogatives of the jury and the desirability of sustaining verdicts fairly arrived at;1 and also of the breadth of discretion which the trial court, because of its advantaged position,2 should be allowed in passing upon the sufficiency and credibility of evidence; and in the granting or denying of new trials.3
The majority opinion states those portions of the evidence it refers to fairly and *404accurately, and it is difficult for me to accept the premise that it impresses me as being based upon: a somewhat labored effort to so view the evidence as to support a foregone conclusion that the actions of the trial court and of the jury were devoid of reason. But I am equally .at a loss to perceive any other basis for the conclusion it reaches. In my view of this case we should not avoid facing up to those aspects of the evidence and the reasonable inferences which the jury could draw therefrom which would tend to support their finding. It is therefore my purpose to set forth, with such clarity and persuasiveness as I am capable of, the considerations and the evidence which convince me that the verdict is fully justified and should be sustained.
If the point of view adopted is to look at this case as jurors, it should be approached with some tolerance and understanding for the different perspectives from which people of varying intelligence, experience and conditioning might see it. Indeed it might help us to be more realistic in this regard to look at this situation as the trial court and jurors actually must have done in this case and with a view to sustaining their conclusion, rather than to destroy it. It is submitted that if the evidence is looked at with that purpose in mind, together with the fair inferences that could be derived from the experience and common sense of the jurors, they could reasonably have believed each and every one of the following facts, which together provide an entirely reasonable basis for their conclusion.
The plaintiff and defendant had been friends of at least some degree and had been drinking together on Christmas day. Although the plaintiff did not stigmatize the defendant by any charge of drunkenness, the fact of the just prior drinking of whiskey is one of the important components in searching out the cause of this accident. The plaintiff says they had had “a few highballs.” The defendant admits to a couple of drinks of whiskey. Hardly anyone ever admits to having taken more. It was dark and snowing when the defendant drove eastward on Riverside Avenue to the west edge of Highway 91. After some delay because of the heavy traffic, he became irritated and abruptly changed his course, swung his car northward along an area used for parking just off the west side of the highway, as fast as his car could go. Under persistent questioning about rapid acceleration he so admitted. The terms used were “digging out” and “spinning gravel,” throwing it against the fenders. He proceeded in this manner for a distance of just under 200 feet and crashed into the telephone pole.
Plaintiff was pressed as to why he had not protested when the defendant changed direction and started on the course of conduct just described. His response was *405that it all happened so fast that he only had time to say: “Where are you going,” or “What are you doing,” and the defendant was making answer when they crashed into the telephone pole. Plaintiff said: “It all happened so quick — it seemed like a split second — all I remember is hitting the pole.”
The jury undoubtedly thought that the defendant’s conduct was highly irrational. They could well believe that it is a primary requisite to safe driving to at least drive the car on the highway where it is supposed to be driven, but that the defendant did not even exercise that minimum of judgment and care, but impetuously decided to make a mad dash through an area neither conditioned for nor intended for such travel, culminating in a crash against a telephone pole and a mail box which were in plain sight. The evidence is that this area “was not surfaced, it may have been asphalted in the past, but it was broken up and graveled over,” an area “where they used it to pull in and park.” These facts are also supported by the pictures, and the jurors as residents of the area could not help knowing it anyway. Furthermore, because of these facts, it was an area where there were not only likely to be obstructions, but where there actually were obstructions, as the result demonstrated.
The jury was not limited to a consideration of any particular aspect of the evidence : neither to the fact that the defendant had been drinking, nor that on a dark and stormy night he had become annoyed and made an abrupt and irrational decision to “dig in” as fast as his car could go along the wrong side of the highway in an area not conditioned for such travel, and with apparent total unconcern for safety, ran into the telephone pole. The jury was entitled to, and undoubtedly did, make their analysis and come to their conclusion upon considering in combination all of the facts disclosed by the evidence and contributing to the end result.4 When they are so considered they impress me as about as likely a set of circumstances to justify submission of the issue of willful misconduct to the jury as any I can readily conjure up in my mind, except only a situation where someone set about with deliberate intent to injure someone else.
It is not suggested that defendant acted with any deliberate intent to injure the plaintiff or himself. The law does riot so require. The trial court properly instructed the jury that they could not find the defendant guilty of willful misconduct for ordinary negligence, nor even for gross negligence, but only if he acted in such a reckless manner that he should have realized that injury to others would be a *406probable result.5 He also submitted to the jury the issues as to assumption of risk and contributory negligence.
Having set forth the situation above brings me to the point at which I am baffled in this case. A well-respected, experienced, perceptive and judicious trial judge, from his position of advantage in relation to the trial and the witnesses, has believed that the evidence was sufficient to support a jury finding on the issue of willful misconduct, both at the time of the trial and in denying a motion for a new trial. The jury of presumably fairminded and reasonable citizens have agreed without a dissenting vote in finding for the plaintiff on this issue. For whatever value it may have, there is added thereto the firm conviction of this writer, concerning whose reasonableness in this matter I must leave to others to judge. Yet this court wipes out everything heretofore done in this case on the ground that no reasonable person could so believe.
The differences of opinion just pointed out would seem to bring this case within the well established principle stated by the late and respected Justice Frick of this court in Newton v. Oregon Short Line RR. Co.,6 that “ * * * Unless the question of negligence is free from doubt, the court cannot pass upon it as a question of law; * * * if the court is in doubt as to whether reasonable men * * * might arrive at different conclusions, then this very doubt determines the question to be one of fact for the jury * * When this is so, it is the right of the parties to have a jury determine it. This court has heretofore paid its respect to the virtue of judicial restraint and the desirability of observing it by not encroaching upon this foundational right by which there is preserved to the people the privilege of presenting their disputes to a representative group of citizens. It is the means of keeping the law close to the people and serves as the ultimate safeguard against the deprivation of or the overriding of individual rights by any arbitrary or despotic action.7
Although the nature of the plaintiff’s injuries and the extent of his damages do not go directly to the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a finding of willful misconduct, it is not amiss to be aware of their seriousness to him. The medical evidence shows that he has suffered painful, serious and permanent injuries : scars upon his face; loss of function and feeling by impairing some of both sensory and motor nerves about his eyes; and most serious of all, is left blind in his right eye. He has incurred substantial medical and hospital bills; and is under the necessity of long-term, perhaps lifetime, further checking and *407medical care. He is a man who works for ■$300 per month and thus these considerations would undoubtedly be of grave importance to him. He has gone through all ■of the suffering indicated; and the tortuous procedures leading up to and through a trial by jury, wherein by the rulings of the judge and the determination of the jury he has been awarded a verdict of $10,595.00. Under the circumstances hereinabove set forth as they appear to me, to now take this judgment away from him is in my opinion an act which I am impelled to protest as an injustice, the responsibility for which I have no desire to share. I would affirm the judgment.
TUCKETT, J., dissents.

. Hales v. Peterson, 11 Utah 2d 411, 360 P.2d 882.

. As to advantaged position of trial court, see statement in Nokes v. Continental Min. & Mil. Co., 6 Utah 2d 177, 308 P.2d 954.

.Geary v. Cain, 69 Utah 340, 255 P. 416. See Holmes v. Nelson, 7 Utah 2d 435, 326 P.2d 722; and King v. Union Pacific R. Co., 117 Utah 40, 212 P.2d 692.

. See Jumper v. Goodwin, 239 S.C. 508, 123 S.E.2d 857; also Layman v. Heard, 156 Or. 94, 66 P.2d 492.

. Stack v. Kearnes, 118 Utah 237, 221 P.2d 594.

. Newton v. Oregon Short Line RR. Co., 43 Utah 219, 134 P. 567.

.See statement in Stickle v. Union Pac. R. Co., 122 Utah 477, 251 P.2d 867.