Court Opinion

ID: 9445653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:35:28.329734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:21.836693
License: Public Domain

MARIS, GOODRICH, McLAUGHLIN and HASTIE, Circuit Judges
(concurring).
We join in the opinion of the court and in its conclusion that the trial judge’s communication to the jury in the absence of the parties and their counsel cannot be said to have been harmless or merely collateral and that it accordingly makes a new trial imperative. We reserve judgment, however, on the question whether a new trial must be granted solely because of such a communication if the communication is clearly shown to be harmless to the parties or wholly collateral to the issues under consideration by the jury. The case before us is not such a case nor do we understand that such a case was presented in Fillippon v. Albion Vein Slate Co., 1919, 250 U.S. 76, 39 S.Ct. 435, 63 L.Ed. 853, or in Arrington v. Robertson, 3 Cir., 1940, 114 F.2d 821.