Court Opinion

ID: 9670228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:17:00.852472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:03.165710
License: Public Domain

CONNOR T. HANSEN, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent because it appears to me that this court has retried this case rather than subject it to judicial review. In reviewing an order granting a new trial this court must look for reasons to sustain the trial court’s order. Loomans v. Milwaukee Mut. Ins. Co., 38 Wis.2d 656, 662, 158 N.W.2d 318 (1968). Such an order should be reversed only for a clear abuse of discretion. Hillstead v. Shaw, 34 Wis.2d 643, 648, 150 N.W.2d 313 (1967). In other words, the trial court has to be wrong about the evidence or the law. McCarthy v. Thompson, 256 Wis. 113, 40 N.W.2d 560 (1949). Recently, in Larry v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 88 Wis.2d 728, 277 N.W.2d 821 (1979) we quoted the following statement by Justice BARNES from Schlag v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 152 Wis. 165, 169, 170, 139 N.W. 756 (1913) :
“. . . However, this court is very loath to interfere with the discretion to grant new trials that is vested in circuit judges. It is a power that should be courageously *585and fearlessly exercised whenever a trial judge is convinced that to enter judgment on a verdict returned would result in a miscarriage of justice. It is very possible that this important power is used more sparingly than it should be. . . .”
In the instant case the trial court concluded that a new trial was necessary and gave a reasonable basis for that conclusion. Nevertheless, this court has gone beyond its scope of review to question the trial court’s eminently reasonable evaluation of the evidence. This court asserts a strained view of the evidence as a basis for its conclusion that the verdict should be sustained.
The trial court granted a new trial in the interests of justice because it appeared that the only credible evidence to support the jury’s verdict was the engineer’s somewhat confused testimony. In an attempt to find some credible evidence to support the verdict the trial court concluded that the jury decided that the engineer was responsible for the emergency and therefore rejected the emergency doctrine. The trial court went on to explain that the preponderance of the evidence showed that an emergency situation existed and that a reasonable choice had been made. The trial court reached this conclusion after referring to case law which concerned the need for a new trial where the verdict is against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence. I submit that what the trial court actually did here, despite the fact that the order granted a new trial in the interests of justice, was grant a new trial because the evidence which supported the jury’s finding of causal negligence on the part of the engineer was against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence. This conclusion is not merely a reasonable determination, it is the only sensible view of the evidence.
Clearly a finding of causal negligence can only be based on the inaction of the engineer in failing to blow the *586horn before Bourgeois struck plaintiff’s car. The majority opinion applies the emergency doctrine but concludes that the engineer was negligent because the ordinarily prudent person faced with this emergency would have sounded the horn. I question the soundness of this conclusion in view of the fact that the engineer, not unreasonably, thought Bourgeois was aware of the train. The lights were flashing, the bells were ringing and the gate was down. The time factor must also be considered in deciding whether or not the engineer was negligent. The trial court found that 1.96 seconds passed between the moment the engineer realized that Bourgeois was not going to stop and the moment Bourgeois struck plaintiff’s car. The trial court then found that it would take .75 seconds for the engineer to activate the horn. I am not prepared to find a man negligent because he fails to make the ordinarily prudent person’s choice in .75 seconds. That time period allows only for instinctive action, not choice. Certainly the engineer’s testimony indicates that he was able to make decisions after he realized that Bourgeois was not going to stop. However, these deliberations obviously took place throughout the crucial two seconds, not within the first .75 second. This leads me to a second objection to the verdict and this court’s decision. Even if one is able to get by the problem of concluding that the engineer was negligent, finding that negligence causal is impossible. Such a finding requires the trier-of-fact to carefully construct a chain of assumptions, each of which is so tenuously related to the evidence that together they lead to a conclusion that is at best speculative. This is not the type of conclusion upon which a verdict should rest and is certainly the type of conclusion that is against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence.
The verdict required the jury to make the following assumptions: First, that within .75 seconds the engineer *587could not only have physically activated the horn hut also have undergone the thought processes necessary to compel him to pull the horn. Second, that within .75 seconds Bourgeois, despite his intoxicated condition and the loud music he was listening to, would hear the train horn, comprehend its import and take appropriate action. Third, that within the remaining .46 seconds Bourgeois, despite his intoxicated condition and the wet road surface, would have been able to avoid colliding with the plaintiff’s car. These assumptions are difficult to make because the time spans used by the trial court are based on normal driver and road conditions, unadjusted for intoxication or wet pavement. Furthermore, the total span of 1.96 seconds was computed from the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff, a necessary analysis for ruling on a motion for a directed verdict. There was also evidence that Bourgeois was going 40 miles per hour and was only 100 feet away from the tracks when the engineer realized that he wasn’t going to stop. This evidence must be included in considering the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence.
The majority chooses to find a man causally negligent for failing to make the correct choice in .75 seconds. This holding may have been arrived at through a process of legal reasoning but it is highly unrealistic and difficult to reconcile with common notions of justice.
I would affirm the order granting a new trial.
I am hereby authorized to state that Mr. Chief Justice BEILFUSS and Mr. Justice CALLOW join in this dissenting opinion.