Court Opinion

ID: 9851045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:06:24.893553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:47.742633
License: Public Domain

Smith, Judge,
dissenting.
This is a case in which a jury instruction on proximate cause was strongly indicated, if not demanded, by the evidence. The appellant submitted a specific written request to charge on proximate cause. The trial court responded to appellant’s clear and specific inquiry on this point during a bench conference and confirmed that no charge on proximate cause would be given. Appellant excepted to the failure to define proximate cause in the jury instructions. We cannot now construe some other portion of the charge as sufficient to provide an implied or inferential definition of proximate cause, when the giving of an explicit definition was expressly requested and expressly refused.
For this reason, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Judge Barnes joins in this dissent.
On Motion for Reconsideration.
Hancock filed a motion for reconsideration which we have denied. But she raises a specific point with regard to Division 8 of our opinion. Having initially failed to direct our attention to a timely filed request to charge on the definition of “proximate cause,” or any discussion on the submission of such charge, Hancock now cites to pages 100, 241, 244, and 248 of the record in this case and contends that this Court “overlooked some portions of the record” which Hancock now “invite [s]” us to “peruse.” Such invitation would have been so much more valuable in an appellant’s enumerations of error and *627supporting brief. And we sincerely invite appellant’s perusal of Court of Appeals Rule 27 (b) (1) requiring appellant to cite to any “parts of the record or transcript deemed material.” Id. “We have repeatedly held that it is not the function of this court to cull the record on behalf of a party.” (Punctuation omitted.) Rolleston v. Cherry, 226 Ga. App. 750, 753 (1) (b) (487 SE2d 354) (1997). However, in spite of Hancock’s violation of our Rules of Court, we will exercise our discretion to review Hancock’s claim of error in order to address an issue of repeated concern.
Hancock claims the trial court’s charge on proximate cause was deficient because the charge did not include the following legal definition of proximate cause submitted as plaintiff’s Request to Charge No. 4:
Proximate cause is that which, in the natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by other causes, produces an event, and without which the event would not have occurred. Proximate cause is that which is nearest in order of responsible causes, as distinguished from remote, that which stands last in causation, not necessarily in time or place, but in causal relation. It is sometimes called the dominant cause.
In support of this contention, Hancock cites both Taft v. Taft, 209 Ga. App. 499 (433 SE2d 667) (1993) and Cline v. Kehs, 146 Ga. App. 350 (246 SE2d 329) (1978).
However, a review of both Taft and Cline shows that the reversible error in each was the trial court’s failure to charge the law on proximate cause at all. See Taft v. Taft, supra at 500-501 (“the trial court failed to define proximate cause or to instruct adequately the jury as to the meaning of this concept”) (emphasis supplied); Cline v. Kehs, supra at 352 (6) (“[t]he trial court did not charge on the issue of proximate cause”). The failure to charge the precise, legal definition of proximate cause does not automatically constitute reversal. Gray v. Elias, 236 Ga. App. 799, 803 (513 SE2d 539) (1999). Instead, the trial court must charge the jury “as to the legal meaning of proximate cause and its application to the facts.” (Emphasis supplied.) Cline v. Kehs, supra.
In this case, Hancock contended that her back injury resulted from her fall off the school bus; the defendant put forward evidence that Hancock had a chronic back condition before she fell off the school bus. In that regard, the trial court charged the jury on the meaning of proximate cause as it related to the facts of the case:
[P]laintiff contends that she is entitled to recover damages for various medical expenses connected with her injury. *628Plaintiff says that [by] reason of the injuries received as alleged, it was necessary for her to have treatment and that she was put to expense in this regards [sic]. I instruct you that if you believe that Plaintiff was injured, as alleged, and is entitled to recover, these are legitimate items for which damages may be awarded. In this event, you would award Plaintiff for these services, such sum as the evidence shows was reasonable and made reasonably necessary by such injury. ... I instruct you, members of the jury, that no plaintiff may recover for injuries or disabilities which are not connected with the act or omissions of the defendant in this case. There can be no recover for a — no recovery for a particular plaintiff for any injury or disability which was not proximately caused by the incident in question. I instruct you that the burden is upon the plaintiff to establish by a preponderance of the evidence which of her injuries resulted from the negligence, if any, of the defendant and which of her damages and injuries or ailments were caused by some other source other than the defendant. If you find that the plaintiff is entitled to recover, under the instructions I have given you, she will be entitled to recover damages only directly resulting from the — from the acts of this defendant and would not be entitled to recover damages for injuries or ailments the plaintiff experienced from any mental or physical condition existing prior to such actions of this defendant.
“It is a fundamental rule in Georgia that jury instructions must be read and considered as a whole in determining whether the charge contained error.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Hambrick v. State, 256 Ga. 688, 690 (3) (353 SE2d 177) (1987). See also Delaney v. Lakeside Villa, 210 Ga. App. 430 (3) (440 SE2d 668) (1993). Here, the trial judge instructed the jury on Hancock’s burden of proof and the necessity that Hancock’s injury be the direct result of the defendants’ negligence. The legal definition of “proximate cause” submitted by Hancock would have been elaborative — and it would have been better had the trial court given this or some other definition of proximate cause — but the court’s charge contained the legal meaning of proximate cause and its application to the facts. Cline v. Kehs, supra. Moreover, Hancock fails to offer any argument whatsoever as to how the trial court’s omission to give her definitional charge on proximate cause might have misled or confused a jury of ordinary intelligence. Clark v. Stafford, 239 Ga. App. 69, 74 (3) (522 SE2d 6) (1999). As such, we cannot say the charge as given, considered as a whole, was error.
*629Decided September 14, 1999
Reconsideration denied November 2, 1999
Ray C. Smith, for appellant.
Barrow & Ballew, Joseph H. Barrow, Edenfield & Cox, Gerald M. Edenfield, for appellees.