Court Opinion

ID: 9647463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:37:16.271994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:49.876110
License: Public Domain

GAERTNER, Judge,
dissenting.
I join in Judge Smith’s dissenting opinion with these additional comments.
Sall v. Ellfeldt, 662 S.W.2d 517 (Mo.App.1983), is not authority for finding prejudicial error warranting a new trial because of the converse instruction, even in the absence of additional instructions regarding apportionment of relative fault. In Sail the court noted that “the settled principle requires that the verdict-director and the converse instruction be read together to determine the meaning they yield to a jury of ordinarily intelligent laymen: if the submission is legally sufficient by that standard, there is no prejudice.” Id. at 524-25. The court then pointed out that when the converse is read together with the verdict-director, especially since the former expressly refers to the latter, it “informs that Sail was entitled to a verdict not only if the Hunt misconduct alone caused the injury, but also if that negligence merely combined with the Ellfeldt acts to cause the injury.” Id. at 526. However, the court found it unnecessary to decide whether or not “the synthesis of the two instructions palliates any error” because of the additional instructions relating to apportionment of fault between co-defendants.
I am unable to fathom how the majority can read “sole cause” into the words “direct result.” They are, in effect, interpreting the word “direct” as meaning “independent.” The words are neither synonymous nor connotative of similar concepts. The relationship between cause and result is no less direct because the cause is a combination of result producing factors. In MAI the words “direct” as a modifier of “result” and “directly” as a modifier of “caused” are used to submit to the jury the issue of proximate cause as opposed to intervening or remote cause. It seems to me to be tortuous reasoning to conclude an ordinarily intelligent jury would read “direct result” as excluding the combination of two causes producing a single result. If the language of the converse constituted a departure from the language of the verdict-director, it was not a substantial departure, especially since the former refers to and must be read together with the latter.
Additionally, the deviation, if any, was not prejudicial for, if the interpretation the majority places upon the converse construction is correct, the jury found the negligence of defendant Bean to have been the sole cause of the death of plaintiffs’ decedent. The facts in this case completely dispel any such possible misinterpretation by the jury. The acts of Dr. Smith in performing the surgery were totally under the direction and control of Dr. Olson,1 who had settled with plaintiffs before trial. *917Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed with prejudice as to Dr. Smith before submission. Under these circumstances, the verdict of the jury in favor of the hospital cannot even inferentially be based upon a misconception that plaintiffs’ damage could only directly result from the negligence of a single party.
ORDER
The en banc opinion issued in this cause on January 22,1985 supersedes the opinion of September 4, 1984.

. Because defendant Normandy Osteopathic Hospital has not asserted the issue of submissi-bility, we do not decide whether or not this evidence insulates the hospital from vicarious liability. Tractor-Trailer Supply Co. v. Wilbur Waggoner, etc., 539 S.W.2d 465 (Mo.App.1976).