Court Opinion

ID: 9647003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:20:31.413263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:44.732497
License: Public Domain

WINTERSHEIMER, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion because the error, if any, in regard to the instructions was nonprejudicial and when considered as a whole, the instructions were not improper.
Drury was injured as a passenger in an automobile involved in a three-vehicle chain-reaction collision. After a five-day trial, nine persons on the jury decided that the Drury medical expenses did not meet the threshold to overcome the bar against her bringing a court action and she was denied any recovery.
The instruction given by the trial judge followed the language of Bolin v. Grider, Ky., 580 S.W.2d 490 (1979). Drury argues that the failure of the trial court to give instructions which she tendered was prejudicial error. The failure of the trial court to give the instructions requested by Drury was nonprejudicial error because the jury never reached the portions of the instructions where Drury’s instructions would have appeared. If this situation is considered from a practical perspective of a jury, rather than through a strict technical legal analysis, it appears that Instruction I, did not prejudice Drury.
The trial judge correctly instructed the jury to award Drury only those damages sustained directly by reason of the accident notwithstanding her requested “aggravation” language.
The negative response of the jury to the critical “no-fault threshold” questions in *718Instruction No. I barred Drury from any recovery due to the no-fault acts litigation restrictions in K.R.S. 304.39-060. The Instructions IV and V were not erroneous and did not prejudice Drury; at the most, they were harmless error, if error, at all.
The instructions of the trial judge in regard to the first $10,000 was not improper or unduly prejudicial when considered as a whole.
There was sufficient evidence for the jury to answer the interrogatory in the negative and thereby obviate the necessity for the jury to consider other instructions pertaining to liability and compensation.
I find no reason to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals or to say that the jury was confused by the $10,000 instruction, or that any other prejudice resulted from it. Accordingly, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals in all respects.
REYNOLDS and SPAIN, JJ., join in this dissent.