Court Opinion

ID: 9614537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:26:20.979821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:36.997351
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with the holding of the majority that the trial court’s refusal to admit into evidence nationally recognized safety standards amounted to harmless error. Had the trial court admitted the safety standards, the jury might well have measured appellee’s conduct against a higher standard of care and rendered a verdict more favorable to appellant. The trial court’s error, therefore, prejudiced appellant, and he is entitled to reversal and a new trial. See Herman v. Speed King Manufacturing Company, Wyo., 675 P.2d 1271, 1278 (1984); ABC Builders, Inc. v. Phillips, Wyo., 632 P.2d 925 (1981).
We have held in the past that a defendant’s conduct must always be gauged against a standard of due care, as determined by the jury, and that local customs or practices cannot establish a standard of care conclusively binding upon the jury. Pan American Petroleum Corporation v. Like, Wyo., 381 P.2d 70, 75-76 (1963). The trial court in the instant case improperly bound the jury to a reduced standard of care (1) by refusing to admit safety standards not specifically required by the City of Powell; (2) by declining to charge appel-lee with a higher degree of care than that practiced by similarly situated contractors; and (3) by instructing the jury that
“Powell City Ordinance § 20.3-202 sets forth a standard of conduct for a reasonable man engaged in the business of street construction * * Instruction No. 8.
This restriction upon the jury’s ability to apply the appropriate standard of care clearly prejudiced appellant. If the jury had been permitted to measure appellee’s conduct against a higher standard, a reasonable possibility exists that the jury would have attributed a higher percentage of the total negligence to appellee, with a concomitant reduction in the percentage of total negligence assigned to appellant. The verdict in such case might well have been more favorable to appellant.
In support of their finding of harmless error, the majority note that the jury failed to find that appellant’s injuries resulted *223from his tripping over the stakes and cord surrounding the trench. The essential question in this case, however, is not whether appellant’s tripping over the cord caused his damages, but whether appellee’s breach of duty (i.e., failure to take adequate protective measures at the construction site) caused appellant’s damages. In this regard, the jury specifically found that appellee negligently maintained its work site and that such negligence proximately caused appellant’s injuries.
Thus, appellant established all of the elements of his cause of action in negligence against appellee. He failed to recover, however, because his assigned negligence exceeded that of appellee. I would reverse this case to afford appellant the opportunity to establish the proper standard of care in light of all of the relevant evidence and to permit the jury to determine the relative degrees of negligence based on such appropriate standard of care.