Court Opinion

ID: 9690147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:55:18.744449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.802893
License: Public Domain

DUNN, Retired Justice
(dissenting).
I would respectfully dissent. I am convinced that the jury was hopelessly confused by the manner in which it was generally instructed on the three theories of recovery by the plaintiff.
The evidence does not support the defenses of assumption of risk, contributory negligence or misuse of the strict liability claim against Action Company; yet, the jury was generally instructed on all of these defenses. If the jury were to find that the defective rein was the proximate cause of this accident and injury, the evidence does not support submitting assumption of risk as an affirmative defense. The plaintiff did not know of the defective rein and had no way of discovering it as the defect was covered by a heavy buckle. Likewise, on the defense of misuse, there is no evidence to support an instruction that the defendant is not liable “if the plaintiff user used the product in a manner in which the defendant could [not] reasonably anticipate it would be used.” Here the plaintiff used the rein for the very purpose that anyone would anticipate it would be used— that is, to check and control the horse, and even the majority opinion indicates that there was no evidence to support an instruction that would deny recovery if the plaintiff’s negligence was the sole proximate cause of the injury. The majority maintains that by “negative inference” the jury was instructed not to consider negligence in the strict liability claim. However, all of these instructions were given on defenses that were not available to the defendant under the evidence on a strict liability claim.
The majority relies on the overused statement that “jury instructions must be considered as a whole” and “are adequate if they correctly state the law applicable to the case.” Here the instructions, while perhaps accurately stating the law, are used on all theories of recovery and some have no basis in fact in a claim for strict liability. In Miller v. Baken Park, 84 S.D. 624, 175 N.W.2d 605 (1970), this Court held that the trial court should instruct only on *415the issues which find support in the evidence, and it reversed the case for retrial where the trial court erroneously instructed on assumption of the risk and contributory negligence where the evidence did not support such instructions.
The case should be retried with the jury being instructed separately in each theory of recovery, and no instructions should be given on defenses that find no support in the evidence.
I am authorized to state that FOSHEIM, C.J., joins in this dissent.