Court Opinion

ID: 9571445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:31:49.394457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:26.791542
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM,
The defendants and appellants have filed a petition for rehearing on the ground that the trial court committed reversible error by instructing the jury that the burden was on the defendants to prove affirmative defenses, when no affirmative defenses were, in fact, pleaded. In the opinion in this case, written by the late Judge Burke, we held that this instruction, though erroneous, was not prejudicial.
The basis for our determination that such instruction, though erroneous, was not prejudicial was that the trial court had instructed the jury:
“Your first duty after entering upon your deliberations of this case will be to decide, from all of the evidence in the case and these instructions, whether the transaction of December 21, 1956, was a loan, as claimed by the plaintiff, or a sale, as claimed by the defendants.”
We must assume that the jury followed this instruction. Having done so, it first found the transaction between the parties to be a loan. The jury having found it to be a loan, the defendants could not have been prejudiced by that portion of the instruction which they now complain of.
Instructions to the jury must be considered in their entirety. Although the instruction complained of, standing alone, may be insufficient or even erroneous, it must be considered in connection with the entire instruction. If the whole charge, taken together, correctly advises the jury as to the law, the error is cured. Froh v. Hein, 76 N.D. 701, 39 N.W.2d 11; Ferderer v. Northern Pacific Ry., 77 N.D. 169, 42 N.W. 2d 216; Moe v. Kettwig (N.D.), 68 N.W.2d 853.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
TEIGEN, C. J., and STRUTZ and ERICKSTAD, JJ., concur.
KNUDSON and MURRAY, JJ., not being members of the Court at the time of submission of this case, did not participate.