Court Opinion

ID: 9600363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:26:12.659171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:03.399985
License: Public Domain

W. W. LESSLEY, District Judge.
I regret, sincerely, that I am unable to agree with the majority in its reversal of the judgment of the lower court in denying the defendant Mrs. Florence V. Anderson a new trial.
It is my duty to disagree but this dissent will be brief. The crux of the majority opinion is the alleged error of the lower court in giving instruction No. 35, over the defendant’s objection, and we shall confine our statement to that point. This instruction is treated as fatal; it is the view of the majority of this court that the evil thereof is not checked, or changed, or modified, or supplemented, or redeemed, by other instructions given. They state, flatly that the effect of the alleged fatal instruction is to make Mrs. Anderson an insurer, and further an insurer against the negligence of her father, August Vaux.
"We approach our analysis in this cause not as an exercise in legal calisthenics but mindful of the trial judge’s task in a fast-moving case. The lower court, unlike the majority, does not have the sustaining and soothing benefit of conferences and counsel with his brethren, or the opportunity for research and study. I say this not to excuse an error committed by the lower court in instructing the jury as to the law, because in my humble opinion there was no error, but it needs to be stated and stated by an appellate court to put in proper perspective instructions of law in our jurisdiction.
Let us first return to the facts taken from the companion case that we may properly place the defendant Mrs. Florence V. Anderson in the fact structure.
‘ ‘ The history of the ownership of the land on which dams were constructed and which is pertinent to our decision is as follows: August Vaux acquired the land in 1912; he personally occupied and farmed it until the spring of 1948; he then leased *578it to one Clifford Jensen for a two year term, ending January 1, 1950. Until his illness in April 1949 Yaux personally handled and operated his business, and had provided in the Jensen lease that he retain control of the lands so leased. On June 25, 1945, Yaux executed a deed (he had written in longhand) of the lands to his daughter Florence V. Anderson; he kept this deed until July 1949, when he instructed Florence to take the deed and place it on record. This she did. From and after July 1949, Florence Y. Anderson maintained and operated the dams and managed the ranch lands on which they were located. She knew of the enlargement of the upper dam, construction of the spillway, she teas out at the dams at various times, she was interested, and if any redressing was needed in her opinion, she ordered it done to the dams.” Farmers Union Oil Co. v. Anderson, No. 9461, 129 Mont. 580, 291 Pac. (2d) 604. (Emphasis supplied.)
These facts must be read with the admitted statement that the upper dam broke at about 2:15 a.m. on March 26, 1951.
Now let us consider the pertinent instructions of the court. The court in instruction No. 33 told the jury: “You are instructed that the negligence of a person in permitting a dangerous condition to remain on his premises is not sufficient to charge him with liability for an injury resulting therefrom after he has parted with the ownership and control of such premises. Responsibility then rests upon the purchases or other person who is substituted with respect to the control over the property, if such person, either knew or ~by exercise of ordinary care should have known of such a condition.” (Emphasis supplied.)
If you read instruction No. 33 with instruction No. 35, as you must, you find the court emphasizing knowledge actual or implied as a predicate of Mrs. Anderson’s liability in this cause, if any. To cast away instruction No. 33 from this auxiliary accomplishment because of the single unfortunate phrase, “dangerous condition,” is to refuse a judicial margin for tolerance. If “dangerous condition” is anathema here, surely the court’s instruction No. 20, which reads in part as *579follows, “Yon are instructed, as a matter of law that a person may lawfully collect and impound waters hy means of a dam and is not liable in such ease for injuries or damages caused by the breaking of the dam or tbe escape of the waters therefrom in the absence of negligence on his part” (emphasis supplied) removed the curse from that phrase.
But the lower court did not stop there; it bluntly, categorically and succinctly instructed the jury in instruction No. 19 as follows: “You are instructed that the owner of a dam and reservoir used for irrigation purposes is not liable as an insurer for injuries sustained upon the breaking or escaping of water therefrom.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The lower court correctly discharged its onerous duty in instructing the jury as to the law. The record is eloquent on that point. The majority opinion does not rely on the settled rule of this jurisdiction that the instructions given to the jury are to he read as a whole, though it mentions the rule on its way to a reversal. Further, by the ultimate test as cited by the majority, “ ‘ “how and in what sense, under the evidence before them, and the circumstances of the trial, would ordinary men and jurors understand the instructions as a whole” ’ ”, Rose v. Intermountain Transportation Co., 127 Mont. 493, 267 Pac. (2d) 122, 125, the lower court fully and properly instructed the jury. There was no error below in regard to Mrs. Anderson.
I concur with the majority opinion in its direction to the lower court to dismiss as to the defendant S. A. Anderson on the grounds stated.