Court Opinion

ID: 9688293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:42:41.888868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:37.176419
License: Public Domain

Alexander, J.
(concurring).
I am in full accord with the controlling opinion herein. I agree that, by procuring instructions of like import with those of the plaintiff, the defendant is denied the right to complain.
The use of presumptions in the instructions oug’ht never to be permitted, since, in the first place they are as legal devices only for the court, and, as processes of reasoning, clearly argumentative.
But here the so-called presumption is not such in a judicial sense. There is no presumption of law or fact that an article which disappears mysteriously has been stolen. This assumption is created by the contract and is tantamount to a definition of theft in terms of such disappearance. That is, they mean the same thing. Theft is the hazard insured against and not disappearance, but they were defined as identical.
So that it was not improper to charge, as authorized by the contract, that mysterious disappearance created a presumption of theft. Indeed, such loss is ex vi termini theft. Nor is such a rebuttable presumption, for it is not a true legal presumption. True, the fact of the loss or of the theft is rebuttable as any other fact. It is as if the appellee had insured against a loss through mysterious disappearance. The fact of disappearance could be rebutted by appearance; the mystery could be dissipated by knowledge. Short of such disclosures, the terms mean the same thing.
*333Wherefore, this case presents only an apparent exception to the judicial policy against the use of inferences and presumptions in instructions.
In my opinion the instructions could properly have authorized recovery upon preponderant evidence of such disappearance, since, by contract and not legal presumption, this was sufficient.