Court Opinion

ID: 9778508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:10:25.20927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:10.883567
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. I join in the result reached by the majority, but concerning the jury misconduct issue, I wish to add my own thoughts why I believe the trial judge was not manifestly wrong in finding no reasonable possibility of prejudice resulted from the jurors’ visits to the accident scene. In trying the case, both parties did an excellent job in offering evidence and exhibits that depicted the accident scene. There was little dispute regarding the site as it appeared on the day of the accident, and in fact, the appellees agreed to the use of a detailed model depicting the scene which was prepared by appellants’ counsel and the parties referred to the model throughout the trial. The exhibit even included the type of truck appellee, Lenon White was driving at the time of the collision. The physical characteristics of the scene, including the unusual road approach to where it intersected with the tracks, were crucial to the outcome of the case, but such characteristics were essentially undisputed. In reviewing the jurors’ affidavits, I fail to read anything that the jurors related in their affidavits that disputed or contradicted the scene as the parties presented it at trial. Because the jurors’ visits disclosed nothing about the location not accurately depicted by the evidence and model used at trial, I believe the trial court could reasonably conclude no prejudice resulted. See Birch v. Drummer, 139 Ill. App. 3d 397, 487 N.E.2d 798 (1985); Annotation, Prejudicial Effect of Unauthorized View by Jury in Civil Case of Scene of Accident or Premises in Question, 11 A.L.R.3d 918, 945 (1967). In conclusion, I should mention that the dissenting opinion suggests the present case is the same as Borden except that in Borden, the court had admonished the jurors not to make an independent investigation. I strongly disagree. In fact, we emphasized in Borden that one of the critical issues was whether the train whistle was sounded, and from one of the affidavits before the trial court, we specifically noted the judge could have found that one of the jurors may have been influenced by the external information he gained on the day he visited the accident scene, viz., that the train whistle was not blown until the train was 200 feet from the crossing. None of the jurors’ affidavits here suggest any such added or comparable information as that which was provided by the affidavits in Borden. In my view at least, the trial court’s decision to grant a new trial in Borden would have been correct based solely on the added prejudicial and external information disclosed in that cause irrespective of the court’s admonition to the jurors not to visit the scene.