Court Opinion

ID: 9729702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:46:52.610407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.592269
License: Public Domain

KENNETH M. ROMINES, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. This is a nickel and dime fender bender — soft tissue case. I believe it deserves the same close scrutiny as does a Death case.
The majority relies on “against the weight of the evidence”. I do not know what that means on this record. I do not believe any Judge has ... “almost unfettered” discretion — no more so that any regulatory body, or any State official. I find this unprincipled. My reading of the record finds no explanation from counsel, the trial judge — nor indeed from the majority — as to what was against the weight of the evidence. “Against the weight of the evidence” is a bald conclusion. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, or the Workers Compensation statutes we would find such a conclusion, unsubstantiated, as arbitrary, capricious, and unconstitutional. I believe that is so here. I would deny the point.
That leaves the legal issue as to whether there was substantial evidence for defendant City to give an instruction for failure to keep a look-out. (MAI-37.02, 17.05, and 17.08). That this is the only issue in the case is made clear by Counsel for Ms. Smith. Three times at the motion for new trial counsel said ... “The sole allegation of error is that there was not evidentiary support for the comparative fault submission for failure to keep a look-out”... I take counsel at his word.
My review shows forty-six pages of transcript — from a transcript of three hundred and fifty-three pages — devoted to direct testimony as to the conditions, distances, speed, reaction times, and the sundry by-— play of counsel that made a trial. Simply, there was substantial evidence to give the look-out instruction. The look-out instruction, simple though it is, is both a sword and a shield. To have granted a Motion *931for New Trial on this record was an abuse of discretion.
I would reverse and remand for entry of the Judgment which the Jury reached.