Court Opinion

ID: 9543085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:41:55.27058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:38.663299
License: Public Domain

SHINN, P. J.
I concur. The manner in which the jury was instructed illustrates a practice that has grown up in the matter of instructions which I believe calls for comment.
Many lawyers share the belief that instructions are given little consideration in the deliberations of jurors. While this may be true in some cases, I believe they follow them to the extent they understand them and give up only when they become bewildered. I also believe that juries are usually instructed at such length and with such a superfluity of legal words and phrases as to make it impossible for them to separate the wheat from the chaff. But lawyers hold to their prolixity and to their pompous definitions just as medical witnesses hold to their Latin, although they would discover, upon slight inquiry, that laymen have as little respect for the one as for the other, and not much more understanding. The legal profession has not only failed to progress in this branch of procedure, but in some respects has retrogressed. The time was when trial lawyers understood the importance of instructing juries in a manner that would aid them in applying principles of law to established facts. It was recognized that in reaching a decision upon a factual issue, as, for instance, negligence, the jury would have to determine first what was the conduct of the party charged with negligence. If the conduct consisted of driving a vehicle, the jury might have to decide whether it was driven in violation of statutory law or without the exercise of ordinary care. It was the practice in a case of this kind to state the facts hypothetically, and in the alternative; under certain facts the jury was to find negligence, under other facts that there was no negligence. Under this practice the party in whose favor a rule of law operated would receive the full benefit of it, if the facts were found in his favor. If this procedure had been followed in the present ease, a proper instruction as to the alleged negligence of Howard Zink Corporation would have read as follows: “If you conclude from the evidence that the employee of Howard Zink Corporation, in closing the warehouse door, failed to exercise the care that would have been exercised under the circumstances by a person of ordinary prudence yon should find defendant Howard Zink Corporation guilty of negligence.” As to the claimed *429negligence of plaintiff a proper instruction would have been: ‘‘ If you find that plaintiff, in passing by the warehouse door, failed to exercise the care that would have been exercised under the circumstances by a person of ordinary prudence, you should find plaintiff guilty of negligence.” Instead of simple instructions such as I have suggested, eleven instructions on negligence and contributory negligence were given. These were all stated in cold, abstract terms, and involved a considerable amount of repetition. Together, they constituted an abstruse treatise on negligence of such length as to fag the minds of the jurors. If we agree with Dr. Millikan that an educated person is one who can concentrate for more than two minutes on a given subject, and if we assume that the average juror is not possessed of super intelligence, it would seem to follow that a few brief, clear, instructions applying legal principles to specific facts would serve a better purpose than eleven which stated the same principles in broad general terms and at unnecessary length.
My next comment is upon the instructions on proximate cause. These were three in number, although the words “proximate cause” are found in numerous of the other instructions. One of the instructions read as follows: “The proximate cause of an injury is that cause which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. It is the efficient cause-—-the one that necessarily sets in operation the factors that accomplish the injury. It may operate directly or through intermediate agencies or through conditions created by such agencies.” The instruction on intervening agency that was refused is substantially in the form of one that is commonly used. But even if the errors in it had been corrected it would not have been a satisfactory instruction. While it is customary to give these abstruse instructions on proximate cause and intervening agency, I doubt that they have ever had an effect upon the mind of an average juror except to confuse him. He is required to decide for himself whether certain conduct operated “in natural and continuous sequence,” a phrase that is calculated to becloud his thinking. He must decide whether the conduct of a party “necessarily” set in operation the factors that accomplished the injury. Is he to distinguish between results reasonably to be anticipated and “necessary” results, and if so, how is he to draw a distinction ? One cause is the “efficient cause,” which “necessarily sets in operation *430the factors that accomplish the injury” and the other is the “efficient intervening cause that produces the injury.” I doubt that jurors comprehend these confusing terms or even remember them. I believe they decide, as they should, that the negligence of the driver of a vehicle was a proximate cause of a collision if he was driving in a manner that was likely to cause a collision. The operation of the doctrine of proximate cause should be illustrated by application to the facts of the case, without attempt at definition. The definition of proximate cause that is commonly used was taken from Sherman & Bed-field on Negligence, section 34, 1941 Bevised Edition. It is a statement of theory addressed to students of law, and was not proposed by the authors as a definition to be incorporated in instructions.
Juries do not decide the question of proximate cause, as such. They determine what the conduct of the parties was, whether it was negligent, and whether the negligent conduct was a cause of the injury. The factual decision as to the conduct of a party always furnishes an answer to the question of negligence and almost always to the question of proximate cause. Just as the jury should be instructed that specific conduct would or would not constitute negligence, so it should be instructed that upon one hypothetical set of facts deducible from the evidence, certain negligent conduct would be a proximate cause of the injury, and upon an opposing set of facts it would not be a proximate cause. For illustration, in the present case, with reference to the conduct of the Howard Zink employee, it would have been proper to instruct to the effect that if it was found he was negligent in closing the door and that his negligence was the cause or one of the causes of plaintiff’s injury, such negligence would be a proximate cause of the injury. No other reasonable conclusion could have been reached. Likewise, it would have been proper to instruct that if it was determined that plaintiff in passing by the door was guilty of negligence, without which she would not have been injured, her negligence was a proximate cause of her injury. This also would result as a matter of law. As to defendant Jones, owner of the warehouse building, it was undisputed that the door was maintained in violation of the city ordinances. The jury could properly have been instructed on this subject as follows: “If you find it was reasonably to be anticipated that the opening or closing of the warehouse door would cause injury to pedestrians using the alley, and that plaintiff was injured in this manner, you should find that *431the maintenance of the door in violation of the ordinances was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. ’ ’
Not only in the instances I have mentioned, but in every case, the jury must find the facts as to conduct from which it would follow, as a matter of law, whether such conduct was a proximate cause of an injury. Arguments to the jury on proximate cause are necessarily based upon opposing assumed facts. These furnish a yardstick, which is all the jury needs. Instructions should follow the same pattern. Abstract instructions furnish only a slide rule, which the jurors probably are unable to use.
Altogether, 69 instructions were given, 57 of which were taken from the book entitled ‘‘ California Jury Instructions ’ ’ or “Book of Approved Jury Instructions.” They cover 33 pages of the reporter’s transcript; 15 of them, covering 7% pages, related to damages alone. Although all were correct statements of legal principles, not one of them was redrafted so as to fit any supposed set of facts upon which any of the parties relied. And I remark again that instructing at such length as to overtax the minds and endurance of the jurors defeats its own purpose. Moreover, numerous and repetitious instructions upon a single phase of the case tend to place undue emphasis upon it.
My comments are not critical of the able trial judge, the very capable lawyers in the case, or the form book of instructions. This work has been of considerable assistance to attorneys and the courts. I am sure, however, the authors did not intend it to be used, and that it should not be used, so as to relieve the attorneys in the case of all initiative and responsibility. I criticize the practice which assumes that jurors have unlimited capacity for the assimilation of legal phraseology. Lawyers know it is not true but continue to use their stilted, formal instructions. The rules of law applicable to the ordinary ease can be stated simply, and in language a layman can understand. But what is more important, they can easily be made to fit the facts of the case. There are several good law review articles upon the general subject. (Trusty, ‘‘ The Value of Olear Instructions,” 15 Univ.Kan. City L.Bev. 9; Chestnut, “Instructions to Jurors,” 6 Ky. State B.J. No. 3, p. 48; 98 U.Pa.L.Bev. 223; 28 Ky.L.J. 469; 19 Iowa L.Bev. 603.)
A petition for a rehearing was denied May 24, 1950, and appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied July 6, 1950.