Court Opinion

ID: 9650414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:36:03.814592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:21.294077
License: Public Domain

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the affirmance of the judgment and in the reasons given for sustaining the submission of the case to the jury, but I can not agree with the proposed construction and application of Rule 51..
The rule says counsel may file requests that the court instruct the jury “on the law as set forth in the requests”, and requires the court to inform counsel of its “proposed action upon the requests prior to their arguments to the jury”. I think the rule is drawn in contemplation of the traditional practice in jury cases where counsel present separate numbered “requests” for instructions on the law so formulated that giving or refusing a request informs counsel of the court’s action thereon within the meaning of the rule. As I see it, the application of the rule must be strictly limited to that construction of its provisions. Often a request embodies more than one legal concept -and several of them may be sound and applicable to the case while the request as a whole is improper. But the rule deals with “proposed action upon the requests” and has nothing to do with ’ particular concepts or declarations that may be included within the requests. There was an object in the rule to give counsel information about the instructions before their arguments. But the trial court performs its duty and complies with the rule when it acts upon the requests by giving or refusing them before their arguments to the jury. It thereby informs counsel of its proposed action. Of course if a court should deceive counsel by refusing to give a requested instruction and aft-erwards giving the same instruction, a point could be made of it under Rule 51. But that situation is not presented. It is the duty of the court to instruct the jury fully and fairly upon the law and the fact that the court’s instructions to the jury include some proper concepts that were also embodied in requests refused suggests no reason to upset a verdict. To construe the rule to mean that the trial court must not only tell counsel whether it will give *279or refuse a request, but that the court must also declare itself about all the various concepts that may have been incorporated within the requests, seems to me unjustified. I think it would be disruptive of jury trials to create such an obligation and to consider assignments of error rested upon a trial court’s failure to discharge it.
I would affirm because there was no error in the instructions given and no error in refusing to give the requested instructions.