Court Opinion

ID: 9449168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:59:42.784002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:44.639327
License: Public Domain

WASHINGTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In Mathews v. Lindsay, 108 U.S.App. D.C. 292, 281 F.2d 927 (1960), this court reversed a judgment for the defendant in an automobile accident case because a majority of the sitting division thought that the charge given must have created confusion in the minds of the jury. While there are differences in the two cases, the chief source of confusion which the majority condemned in the Mathews case was the trial court’s discussion of the doctrine of “sudden emergency.” As I said in my concurring opinion:
“ * * * the court’s mention of ‘sudden emergency’ may well have produced confusion in the minds of the jurors. It may have led them to the mistaken view that any sudden emergency — and most automobile accidents are regarded by the participants as emergencies — would cancel the necessity that the defendant do what he reasonably can in the circumstances to avoid injuring the plaintiff.
“ ‘Emergency,’ in my view, is in the present context a misleading term, bound to give rise to futile controversy as to which party ‘caused’ the emergency.” Id. at 294, 281 F.2d at 929.
I think much the same comment can be applied to the present case. Here, indeed, it seems to me that the matter of sudden emergency is not even properly in the ease. All parties concede that the actions of the defendants once the emer*401gency arose are free from negligence. There is here no question of a judgment being made in an emergency situation and a challenge by plaintiffs to the prudence of that judgment. The negligence alleged by plaintiffs pertained to the manner in which defendants conducted themselves prior to the existence of an emergency. The negligence charged is the failure to take proper steps to avoid being in any emergency. At best, therefore, the injection of discussion of this “doctrine” into the case merely confused the jury — at worst, the confusion created may have caused them to return a verdict different from that which they would otherwise have rendered.
Assuming, however, that the trial judge was justified in discussing “sudden emergency,” and that his initial treatment of the matter was adequate, he made — evidently by inadvertence — a serious misstatement at the close of his charge. He said:
“Ask yourselves collectively a series of questions * * * were the defendants or either of them negligent? * * *
“Was the negligence which you have then found the proximate cause of the injuries to these plaintiffs? * * * If your answer is yes * * you then must consider this doctrine of sudden emergency which I have defined in substantial detail to you.
“If you find that the doctrine of sudden emergency is applicable to the defendants’ conduct, then you at that point find for the defendant or defendants to whom you apply that standard of conduct •* * (Emphasis supplied.)
What the jury was told, then, was that they should find for the defendants if they found an emergency. They were told this as though they were required as a matter of law so to find. This statement came at the end of a rather lengthy charge, and must be considered as having nullified the impact of the more correct statement concerning emergency given to the jury some fifteen minutes earlier. Moreover, an appropriate objection was immediately taken. While this objection was not as clearly stated as might be desired, it was adequate. It pointed out the precise portion of the charge that was misleading, and sufficiently brought out the danger of the approach suggested by the judge.
In my view, the insertion of discussion of emergency when plaintiffs did not claim that negligence had occurred at the point when the emergency arose, and then the misstatement of the weight that consideration of emergency should have in the jury’s deliberations, constituted reversible error.