Court Opinion

ID: 9459443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:20:37.000169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:09.835121
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
By Petition for Rehearing the plaintiff-appellant, Coons, objects to that portion of the opinion which said that “counsel neither requested such a charge nor excepted to the charge as delivered. . ; and points out that in the course of a discussion on a motion to strike between counsel and the judge in the robing room, his attorney did mention his position with regard to the propriety of drawing an inference from the failure of the defendant Washington Mirror to call as a witness Dr. Stella who had examined the plaintiff on its behalf. He said:
“The argument is that they examined this man, and I say there is an inference, Your Honor, that if they do not produce him, that his testimony would be adverse to them. That is my objection, sir.”
We are of the opinion, however, that this remark made in the course of an argument on a motion to strike certain rebuttal testimony by the plaintiff concerning some x-rays taken of him and delivered to Dr. Stella, was not sufficient notice to the trial judge of plaintiff’s objection to the charge. Plaintiff’s counsel’s statement about the drawing of an inference was made in a context different from that of a discussion relating to the court’s instructions to the jury. The very brief mention by plaintiff’s counsel in the course of an argument on a motion to strike without any reference whatever to the jury charge makes it less than “clear that the trial judge understood the party’s position.” 5A Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 51.04, at 2521 (2d ed. 1971). The circumstances are not governed by Keen v. Overseas Tankship Corp., 194 F.2d 515 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 343 U.S. 966, 72 S.Ct. 1061, 96 L.Ed. 1363 (1952), on which appellant’s counsel now relies.
As the opinion in this case made no specific mention of the robing room colloquy, the sentence commencing in line 3 from the bottom of page 866 of the opinion in this case is hereby amended to read as follows:
“Plaintiff’s counsel neither requested such a charge nor excepted to the charge as delivered, although he did briefly assert the propriety of the inference during a colloquy with Judge Levet on the exclusion of Coons’ testimony concerning the x-rays. Because of counsel’s failure to make clear to the trial judge that he was objecting to the charge, he is precluded from asserting it here, Rule 51 F.R.Civ.P., unless the omission constituted ‘plain error.’ Finn v. Wood, 178 F.2d 583, 584 (2 Cir. 1950).”
The opinion is in all other respects reaffirmed and the petition for rehearing is denied.