Court Opinion

ID: 9769239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:41:06.301791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:58.898015
License: Public Domain

Jim Johnson, Associate Justice, dissenting. I dissent. In my opinion the majority is this day doing violence to the established law on harmless error. From at least as early as 1887 with the decision in Hames v. Harris, 50 Ark. 68, 6 S. W. 233, and as late as 1958 in Weatherford v. George, 229 Ark. 536, 317 S. W. 2d 147, this Court has consistently held that an error which does no prejudice to the complaining party is harmless and that such an error is not ground for reversal. In Weatherford v. George, supra, this Court made it abundantly clear that a failure to give a proper instruction is immaterial where the interrogatories and the jury’s answers thereto show that the matter covered by the requested instruction was actually decided by the jury. There is no valid distinction between the holding in Weatherford and that in the case at bar. In the cited case, the defendants requested an instruction to the effect that there could be no recovery if one of the plaintiffs was guilty of negligence which was the sole proximate cause of the accident and resulting injuries. The requested instruction was refused. However, this Court pointed out that the question of negligence was fairly submitted by interrogatories numbered 5 and 6. Interrogatory No. 5 read: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Charlie George (the plaintiff mentioned in the requested instruction) was negligent and that such negligence, if any, was a proximate cause of his damages, if any, complained of by him?” (parenthesis supplied). The jury answered this interrogatory “no”. Interrogatory No. 6 read: “Using 100% to represent the total negligence involved, what do you find from a preponderance of the evidence to be the amount of negligence on the part of the following: “ Charlie George: ‘none %’ “Russ Weatherford: ‘100%’” After setting forth the quoted interrogatories, this Court said: “It certainly follows that if the jury found George guilty of no negligence whatever they would not have found that negligence on his part was the proximate cause of the mishap. Accordingly, even if the failure to give the instruction was error, the verdict rendered Toy the jury had the effect of healing or remission.” In the ease at bar the term “negligence” was fully and correctly defined in Court’s Instruction No. 2 and the term “proximate cause” was properly defined in Court’s Instruction No. 3. The trial court submitted the instant case to the jury upon interrogatories. Interrogatory No. 1 read: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that James Gathings (appellant’s admitted servant) was negligent and that such negligence caused or contributed to cause the collision herein?” (parenthesis supplied). Interrogatory No. 1 was answered “yes”. Interrogatory No. 2 was a verbatim copy of Interrogatory No. 1 except it inquired as to Eonnie McDonald’s negligence. Interrogatory No. 2 was answered “yes”. Interrogatory No. 3 read: “What do you find is the proportion of fault, expressed in percentages totaling 100%, attributable tc James Gathings and Eonnie McDonald, is a cause of the collision?” ' ‘ James Gathings ‘ 60 % ’ ‘ ‘ Eonnie McDonald ‘ 40 % ’ ” Thus, we see that the matter of the negligence of both parties and the percentage of such negligence was fully and fairly submitted to and passed upon by the jury just as in the Weatherford case. The majority says: “We do not know what view the jury might have taken had it been instructed on inevitable accident. ’ ’ I submit that the jury did pass on this issue and their view on the matter is obvious. The only possible distinction between Weatherford and the case at bar is that in the cited case the court refused to instruct on negligence whereas here the court refused to instruct on unavoidable accident. This, of course, is a distinction without a difference. It is inescapable that before a jury can find a person guilty of negligence they must first find that the collision was not unavoidable. To find negligence under the definition in this case, it was necessary for the jury to find that the parties failed to exercise that degree of care which is used by ordinary prudent persons under the same or similar circumstances. Had the jury found that defendant’s servant Gathings exercised ordinary care, then their answer to Interrogatory No. 1 would have been “no”. This would, of course, have been a finding that so far as the defendant was concerned the accident was unavoidable. The same thing may be said as to the jury’s finding on the negligence of the plaintiff. To paraphrase Weatherford: It certainly follows that if the jury found both parties guilty of negligence, they would not have found that the mishap was unavoidable. As the Court said in Hames v. Harris, supra, “His injury by the court’s charge is therefore not real but imaginary, even if his theory of the law is right.” We have seen that the issue of unavoidable accident was necessarily determined by the jury in making its determination as to negligence. If the issue was determined then certainly it was submitted in Interrogatories No. 1 and 2. There is no virtue in having the jury instructed in phraseology selected by the appellant rather than that selected by the court provided that the issue was presented. In Ration v. Busby, 230 Ark. 667, 326 S. W. 2d 889, we held that it was not necessary to give the converse or negative of a proposition and cited 88 C. J. S. “Trial” § 303, p. 820. In Ration, we said: “Where the law has been clearly and adequately stated in a positive manner, ordinarily the Court need not instruct in a negative form.” Having submitted the issue as to negligence, it was not incumbent on the trial court to submit the negative which was unavoidable accident. One other illustration should make it absolutely clear that there was no prejudicial reror in refusing the appellant’s requested instruction. Under the interrogatories submitted, the jury could have found that the negligence of each party was zero. Had the jury so found what would this be other than a finding of unavoidable accident? Under the “general verdict” practice, it might be error to refuse to instruct in a proper case upon “unavoidable accident”. However, where a case is submitted to the jury on interrogatories, such as those in the case at bar, such an instruction is absolutely superfluous. Of course it would be proper in any case to instruct that the mere happening of an accident creates no presumption of negligence. However, the appellant did not request such an instruction and the instruction which it did request cannot be tortured into an instruction on no presumption of negligence. It would unduly extend this opinion to minutely analyze the host of cases holding errors such as that in the case at bar to be harmless. Suffice it to say that Arkansas Lumber Company v. Wallace, 99 Ark. 537, 139 S. W. 534, presents a striking parallel to the case at bar. In that case it was held that failure to give an instruction that defendant was not liable if plaintiff’s injuries resulted from an accident which the defendant could not foresee in the light of attending circumstances was not error where all instructions given made it essential that plaintiff prove his injuries were proximately caused by the defendant’s negligence. An excellent discussion of “Error Cured by Verdict or Judgment” may be found in 5A, C. J. S. § 1776, pages 1284-1290. Our Court has always followed the general rules there set forth and it grieves me to think of the Pandora’s Box which we now open by turning our back on these rules. Whether it be said that the jury verdict made the matter moot, or that failure to give the instruction was harmless because of the jury’s answers or that the subject matter of the instruction was covered, it boils down to the fact that appellant was not prejudiced by the action of the court. Therefore, to the majority’s view to the contrary, I respectfully dissent.