Court Opinion

ID: 9701005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:58:28.320442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:17.123782
License: Public Domain

Duncan, J.,
dissenting in part: The jury was instructed that the defendant Sanborn violated the requirements of the statute relating to turning signals (RSA 263:34-36), and that they “must go one step further and find that such violation caused the accident.” If the charge as a whole gave the jury to understand that the issue of causation was for their determination, it furnished them with no criteria by which to decide whether the statutory violation was causal. Cf. Eastman v. Herrick, 87 N. H. 58, 61. This in my judgment was an “important omission from the charge” (Perlman v. Haigh, 90 N. H. 404, 405) which fell short of satisfying the ultimate duty of the Court to state the law “fully and correctly.” Burke v. Railroad, 82 N. H. 350, 362. Requests 6 c and 6 d served to direct attention to the omission, which related to a decisive issue. “Liability depended upon it” (Smith v. Hooper, 89 N. H. 36, 39), and the fairness of the trial required that the jury be furnished, however briefly, with some standard by which to determine it. Simoneau v. Railroad, 78 N. H. 363, 365; Nickerson v. Bentley, 89 N. H. 533, 534; Davis v. State, 94 N. H. 321; *252Burgess v. Railroad, 98 N. H. 372, 380. The supplemental instructions which were later given omitted any reference to causation and eould serve only to compound the error of the original charge. I would sustain the defendant’s exceptions to denial of his requests 6 c and 6 d, and to the supplemental instructions to the jury. 1 agree that the other exceptions are properly overruled.