Court Opinion

ID: 9539419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:04:12.123674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:49.090893
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent as to Division 2. The document, entitled “Shoplifting (Procedure for Detention, Arrest, and Prosecution),” purports to spell out the law on the subject, states with particularity what the company’s policy is, and sets out in a number of explicitly detailed steps what procedure the company employee must follow when confronted with a suspected shoplifting incident.
It would appear that if this written document were considered by the jury in the jury room, there would be a substantial danger that its instructions would be a substitute for the jury’s judgment as to what a reasonable man should do in like circumstances. The reasonableness of the guidelines was not at issue; the behavior of the defendant’s employee was. The guidelines should not be allowed to “illustrate” and thus show and exemplify and illuminate the applicable standard of reasonableness. That is the jury’s province, not the company’s, to ascertain. The danger of the jury confusing the company’s standards with the law’s standard, especially since the company’s would be in written form in the jury room and the legal standard would be only from the lips of the judge, to be remembered by the jury in its deliberations, apparently convinced the trial judge that the negative outweighed any positive which would result from admission.
Like the polygrapher’s official report which was improperly admitted in Harris v. State, 168 Ga. App. 458, 460-61 (309 SE2d 431) (1983), the written procedure standards for employees of the com*181pany would weigh heavily in the jury’s deliberations with respect to the legal standard and the plaintiff would be helpless to dislodge its true significance. At the very least, it would cause confusion as to the proper standard. Jones v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 49 Or. App. 231 (619 P2d 907) (1980).
Moreover, the company could not avoid liability by showing that its employee did not follow the policy instructions which allegedly set a reasonable standard, and so was outside the scope of his employment,1 any more than it could avoid liability by showing that its employee did follow the policy.
Even if it were conceded that the company’s guidelines had some relevancy to any of the issues, the law is that “Evidence which is relevant may be excluded because its probative worth or value is outweighed by its tendency to confuse the issues, or the jury.” MacNerland v. Johnson, 137 Ga. App. 541, 544 (224 SE2d 431) (1976). Repeatedly we have held that broad discretion is reposed in the trial court in determining whether to admit evidence, and that the trial court’s decision will not be disturbed except in cases demonstrating a clear abuse of such discretion. MacNerland v. Johnson, supra; Allstate Ins. Co. v. McGee, 157 Ga. App. 53, 55. (7) (276 SE2d 108) (1981). That court is in the best position to size up what the effect of that evidence is likely to be on the jury and to weigh the confusion factor against the relevancy factor. I do not find an abuse of that discretion here.
The question is apparently a new one in this state, and I believe the majority opinion sets a dangerous precedent by requiring such company guidelines to be admitted in evidence.
I am authorized to state that Judge Pope joins in this dissent.

 J. J. Newberry Co. v. Judd, 259 Ky. 309 (82 SW2d 359) (1935).