Court Opinion

ID: 9448267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:28:58.47845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:21.066852
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Circuit Judge,
(dissenting).
Although the consequences disturb me, I reluctantly accept it as the law of New Hampshire that a jury can be permitted to find that a slope of one quarter of an inch in two feet, described by that court as “imperceptible to the eye,” Steeves v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co., 1942, 92 N.H. 52, 54, 24 A.2d 606, 608, can contribute to making premises unsafe. I do not follow the reasoning that since a much larger slope could readily be found to do this, the difference “is only in degree.” Almost all differences are in degree. This does not free courts from the duty of making a decision. As was said in Jennings v. Tompkins, 1902, 180 Mass. 302, 303, 62 N.E. 265, where a floor nail projected %6ths of an inch, “The line must be drawn somewhere, and it is necessarily to some extent an arbitrary matter where it is to be drawn.”
However, I cannot agree that the court’s failure to instruct the jury that the ad damnum was not evidence was merely poor practice and not prejudicial error. In my opinion it does not advance the matter to say that plaintiff did not ask the jury to return the precise ad damnum figure, or that the defendant did not object to plaintiff’s argument to the jury. Counsel’s argument, as such, was perfectly proper under the law of New Hampshire, which permits mention of the ad damnum. But we cannot assume that a jury is sufficiently sophisticated to be able to place each element in a case in its true perspective without help. It is standard practice for the court to tell the jury that pleadings and the opening of counsel are not evidence. A plaintiff, and even an expert witness, could not testify that her claim had a certain dollar value. If by the ad damnum the plaintiff is to be permitted to offer her opinion, then it behooves the court to make clear that this opinion does not rise to the dignity of evidence. See, e. g., Philadelphia & R. Ry. Co. v. Skerman, 2 Cir., 1917, 247 F. 269; Smith v. Philadelphia Transp. Co., 3 Cir., 1949, 173 F.2d 721, 726. With a jury of laymen I consider this a fundamental matter.