Court Opinion

ID: 9740003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:25:29.949956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:15.336365
License: Public Domain

On Reheabing In our original opinion in dealing with Instruction 22, we said, “Since the trial conference for the setting of instructions has not been abstracted or preserved in the record it has not been shown that the required objection was made at that time and we are precluded from considering this point.” The appellant in its application for rehearing has pointed out that this portion of the record had been preserved and was included in the abstract. We have, accordingly, granted a rehearing on the issue of this instruction. Plaintiff’s Instruction No. 22 given by the Court reads as follows: “You are instructed that if you believe from perponderance [sic] of the evidence that the Defendant Midwest Contractors Equipment Co., Inc., a corporation, was in charge of, or supervised the installation of the drum shaft, at the time and place complained of, then the Midwest Contractors Equipment Co., Inc. through its employee was obligated to exercise reasonable care and caution to inspect the apparatus used in the installation and to exercise reasonable care to determine if the apparatus and method used to accomplish the installation were safe and to warn the plaintiff of any defects in the apparatus about which it, through its employee, had knowledge or of which in the exercise of reasonable care should have had knowledge.” The defendants made certain objections to this instruction at the hearing on instructions, and after the jury returned with its verdict made the following post-trial motion concerning this matter: “There was no evidence to support any of the charges therein contained and no theory of law to support said charges. “The capitalization of the name of the Defendant in the instruction and the designation of ‘a corporation’ drew undue attention of the jury to the status of this Defendant in this suit as against Defendant Cohn. There is no definition contained in the instruction, or any of the instructions, of the term preponderance. The instruction as given imposes a greater burden on Defendant Midwest than was charged by the Plaintiff in his Amended Complaint. The instruction assumes a controverted issue of fact. The instruction is ambiguous and misleading in that neither the term ‘apparatus’ nor ‘installation’ are defined. The Court’s designation of the term ‘you are instructed’ calls undue attention to this instruction and highlights this particular instruction over the other instructions.”  This being the post-trial motion, the defendants cannot raise new grounds for setting aside the verdict for the first time on appeal. Perez v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 24 Ill App2d 204, 164 NE2d 209 (1960). We will, therefore, discuss the points raised by the defendant in his post-trial motion one at a time to determine whether any error was made when the Court gave the jury this instruction.  The first point complained of is that “the name of the Defendant in the instruction and the designation of ‘a corporation’ drew undue attention to the appellant.” Since the instruction dealt with the appellant’s duty to the plaintiff and not the duty of any other defendant in the trial, the court was correct in using the name of this appellant to aid the jury in distinguishing this defendant at the trial from the other defendant—Al Cohn d/b/a Aleo Steel Service. Nor was the designation of the appellant as a corporation an error. The jury was instructed that a corporation had all the rights of a private individual. It is assumed that a jury follows the instructions given it. People v. DiLella, 52 Ill App2d 403, 202 NE2d 77.  The appellant next urges as error the fact that there was no definition of the word “preponderance” in the instructions. We point to this court’s decision in Scerrino v. Dunlap, 14 Ill App2d 355, 144 NE2d 859 (1957) where we said that the word need not be defined. It is a common word of the English language and the jury is perfectly able to ascertain its meaning without instructions on that point from the Court.  As their third point the appellants say that “the instruction as given imposes a greater burden of Defendant Midwest than was charged by the Plaintiff in his Amended Complaint.” In the complaint as amended the plaintiff dropped the charge that the appellant was under a duty to inspect the apparatus. The instruction as given by the Court raises the possibility the jury could find that a duty to inspect was incumbent on the appellants. This, of course, is wrong. An instruction should never open the possibility that a jury could find something to be a fact on which there was no competent evidence. Marut v. Costello, 53 Ill App2d 340, 202 NE2d 853 (1964). The attorney for the appellant, however, did not raise this point at the hearing on instructions. It has often been held that an appellate court will not reverse a trial court on errors that were not properly urged. Jackson v. Gordon, 37 Ill App2d 41, 184 NE2d 805 (1962), Stewart v. DuPlessis, 42 Ill App2d 192, 191 NE2d 622 (1963). We have read the abstract of the proceedings and note that while Plaintiff’s Instruction 22 was under discussion in the Court’s chambers, no mention was made by the attorney for the appellant of the word “inspect”. The argument at the conference centered on whether the instruction in effect told the jury that the appellant had charge of the installation or not. The appellee’s attorney specifically stated at that time that the instruction was to tell the jury that the appellant had a duty to inspect, and there was nothing-said in the conference about striking that word. We see no reason to send this case back for another trial, incurring additional delay and expense on both sides, where the objection was not made in time for the court to correct its own error.  The appellant goes on to claim that the instruction assumes a controverted issue of fact. It does no such thing. It does not say that the appellant was in the process of installing the drum shaft; it says that if the jury finds that they were in charge, then the appellant had certain duties. This is not error. Ramey v. Baltimore & O. S. W. R. Co., 235 Ill 502, 85 NE 639 (1908), 88 CJS Trial, § 280(b), page 753, and cases there cited.  As a fifth ground for finding error in the giving of this instruction the appellant claims that it is ambiguous and misleading in that neither the term “apparatus” nor the word “installation” are defined. As we said above, words of ordinary usage need not be defined for the jury. Herb v. Pitcairn, 306 Ill App 583, 52 NE2d 543 (1940), reversed on other grounds 377 Ill 405, 36 NE2d 555 (1941).  Finally, the appellant claims that by using the term “you are instructed”, the Court called undue attention to this particular instruction. The question was not urged on appeal and we will not consider it here. Having read all the instructions in this case, we believe the jury was properly instructed. Any false impressions which the jury might have received from this instruction certainly would have been corrected by the jury reading the instructions as a whole. “. . . ‘As we stated in Kavanaugh v. Washburn, 320 Ill App 250, “Modern tendency favors a liberal application of the harmless error doctrine to instructions when it appears the rights of the complaining party have in no way been prejudiced.” This same doctrine was announced in Reivitz v. Chicago Rapid Transit Co., 327 Ill 207, and Palmer v. Miller, 310 Ill App 582.’ “. . . We do not believe that the rulings of the court controvert the modern trend—the now well judicially established principle, as set forth in Duffy v. Cortesi, 2 Ill2d 511, 515, 516 as follows: “ ‘The trend of judicial opinion reveals a reluctance to reverse cases on the ground of technical errors in instructions; hence, courts have reiterated that the instructions will he considered as a whole, and where the jury has not been misled, and the complaining party’s rights have not been prejudiced by minor irregularities, such errors will not be deemed grounds for reversal. (Kavanaugh v. Washburn, 320 Ill App 250; Stephens v. Weigel, 336 Ill App 36; Anderson v. Brown, 340 Ill App 613.)’” Bunton v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 15 Ill App2d 311, 146 NE2d 205 (1957). We hold, therefore, that there was no prejudicial error committed at the trial by the giving of this instruction. We hold to the result reached in our original opinion.