Court Opinion

ID: 9647700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:47:41.258025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:52.307051
License: Public Domain

OPINION CONCURRING IN RESULT
STORCKMAN, Judge.
I concur in the result because a new trial was granted by the trial court and our appellate courts are more inclined to affirm the grant of a new trial by the trial court than to grant a new trial where one has been denied by ’ the lower court. I would accept a holding that the trial court is in a better position to discern prejudicial error in the record by reason of the omission of “direct” before “result”; however, I have not been able to determine that the error is prejudicial from my examination of the instructions in the context of the evidence. If counsel for the parties and the court did not detect the omission when the instruction was given, it is not likely that the jury was mislead.
The fault I find with the opinion is that it appears to go beyond the rule in strictness. S.Ct. Rule 70.01(c) says the prejudicial effect of an error arising out of a departure from an approved instruction will “be judicially determined”, while the opinion states that “prejudicial error will be presumed” unless it is made perfectly clear that no prejudice could have-resulted.
The laudable purpose of Missouri Approved Instructions should not lead us back to the strict, unreasonable and sometimes absurd practice that existed in the days of common-law pleading which has been corrected by Statute of Jeofails in the criminal law (§ 545.030, RSMo 1959, and S.Ct. Rule 24.11) and by the present rules of practice and procedure in the civil field.