Court Opinion

ID: 9638716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:51:46.672077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:09.099623
License: Public Domain

HIGGINS, Judge,
dissenting.
I would affirm the judgment.
The question is whether the trial court was justified in its award of a new trial to plaintiff on any of the grounds specified. Davis v. Perkins, 512 S.W.2d 868 (Mo.App.1974). One such ground was that the submission of plaintiff’s contributory negligence did not accurately define plaintiff’s duty of care for his own safety.
In Gaylor v. Wiensehienk, 221 Mo.App. 285, 283 S.W. 464 (1926), a street worker knelt in a busy intersection to adjust and grease railway tracks. While engrossed in his work, he was struck by a truck. In rejection of an argument that plaintiff worker was contributorily negligent as a matter of law, the court held:
The care required of a laborer who is engrossed in his duties on that part of the street used by vehicles is not to be determined by the same rules that are applicable to an ordinary pedestrian. . He is not called upon to exercise the same diligence in avoiding accidents as pedestrians or others who use the street merely as a medium of locomotion.
Id. at page 466. Accord, Boyle v. Bunting Hardware Co., 238 S.W. 155 (Mo.App.1922); Nehring v. Charles M. Monroe Stationery Co., 191 S.W. 1054 (Mo.App.1917); See also, 30 A.L.R.2d 866, § 6; 5 A.L.R.2d 757, §§ 7, 8.
The law in Missouri thus recognizes a special status for a worker performing his duties in the street and that he cannot be required to use the same degree of care required of a pedestrian because the worker must devote attention to his work. The rule is based upon the necessarily divided attention of the worker while in the performance of his duties.
Instruction No. 5 in form MAI 11.02 defined plaintiff’s duty of care as that of the ordinarily careful and prudent person. It did not apprise the jury of the special status enjoyed by plaintiff if found to be in the performance of his duties in the street.
The majority opinion demonstrates evidence to permit a finding that when hit by *455defendant, plaintiff was a worker in the street engrossed in his duties. In ruling on the instruction issue, however, the majority holds that:
The wording of MAI 11.02 — “under the same or similar circumstances” — was broad enough to call to the jury’s attention the circumstance that the respondent was a workman in the street. No special definition of negligence with respect to respondent was required or permissible.
While noting that the circumstance of worker in the street is of some importance and recognizing ease law establishing that a worker engrossed in his duties cannot be expected to keep as careful a lookout as an ordinary pedestrian, the majority nevertheless holds that the trial court erred as a matter of law when it determined that MAI 11.02 did not adequately apprise the jury of Missouri law as it applies to the facts of this case.
True, if an understanding of this special status afforded the worker in the street can be presupposed, his duty may be summarized as, “that degree of care that a reasonably prudent person under the [same or similar] circumstances would exercise.” But absent an instruction to this effect, the jury is not apprised of the worker’s differing duty to look out for his own safety — the jury does not know that “same or similar circumstances” in the instance of a worker in the street means that he is not called upon to exercise the same diligence in avoiding accidents as pedestrians.
Accordingly, I would hold that the trial court did not err when it granted plaintiff a new trial on the ground that MAI 11.02 did not adequately advise the jury of the standard of care required of plaintiff if found to be a worker in the street engrossed in his duties, and would remand the case for retrial with MAI 11.02 modified under Rule 70.02(e) “to fairly submit the issues” in this somewhat unique case.