Court Opinion

ID: 9450030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:33:09.175657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:07.269060
License: Public Domain

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
This accident occurred on slum property owned by the appellant and rented to the appellee here for habitation. As the court’s opinion shows, Section 2508 of the Housing Regulations of the District of Columbia applies to this type of property as well as to all other property in the District of Columbia in which people are expected to live. In pertinent part, Section 2508 provides with respect to such property: “ * * * All steps, rails, balustrades, or other guards shall be of sound material and securely fastened.” Here the jury may well have concluded that the appellant landlord had neglected his duty under the regulations in failing to provide in this rental property a balustrade “of sound material * * * securely fastened,” and that this negligence was a — not necessarily the— proximate cause of the accident. See Whetzel v. Jess Fisher Management Co., 108 U.S.App.D.C. 385, 282 F.2d 943 (1960); compare Gould v. DeBeve, 117 U.S.App.D.C., 330 F.2d 826 (No. 17,-909, decided February 6, 1964).
The test to be applied in determining whether this court, or any other court, should upset that finding and grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict is whether that verdict is so contrary to the weight of the evidence that no reasonable juror1 ******would have voted for it.2 Here twelve jurors voted for it. Under the circumstances of this ease, I would not indict them all as unreasonable.
I respectfully dissent.

. As Dean Green phrased it, there is a case for the jury unless it can be found “that there was no room for two reasonable inferences or that reasonable minds could not disagree about the matter.” Gehen, Judge and Juey 389 (1930).

. “And the appellate court’s function is exhausted when that evidentiary basis becomes apparent, it being immaterial that the court might draw a contrary inference or feel that another conclusion is more reasonable.” Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U.S. 645, 653, 66 S.Ct. 740, 744, 90 L.Ed. 916 (1946).