Court Opinion

ID: 9601785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:49:42.867778+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:12.654998
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HASWELL
specially concurring.
I concur in the result on the ground that the verdict is not supported by the evidence. I concur with the majority that there is no evidence supporting an apportionment of plaintiff’s total damages between the City of Billings and bar owner Mankin. Accordingly, plaintiff is entitled to recover the full amount of his damages from the City of Billings less the $ 10,000 previously paid by Mankin. As the uncontradicted evidence shows that plaintiff’s special damages alone exceeded $60,000, a verdict of only $20,000 is clearly inadequate and not supported by the evidence.
My quarrel with the majority opinion lies in some of the broad and sweeping statements made therein under the guise of preventing error on retrial. I fear that some of these statements may be cited as authority and precedent in future cases to support reversals of jury verdicts on highly technical grounds.
For example, the majority state that in the normal case the jury should not be instructed in the precise words of the statute, but rather the trial court should interpret the meaning and requirements of the statute and then frame an instruction expressing in clear and concise language the meaning of the statute. Although expressing a commendable ideal, this statement conceals a potential for mischief that far exceeds the problem it is inténded to correct.
The implication of this statement is that in the usual case it is the duty of the trial court to improve the statutory language enacted by the legislature. Thus, where the trial court fails to paraphrase a statute in instructing the jury on the law of the case, the seeds of reversal of jury verdicts are sown. I disagree with this rigid, inflexible approach.
In my view, jury instructions should be tested on appeal by the standard of whether they fairly and correctly state the law of the *259case rather than whether some alternative language would be better or worse than the trial court’s instruction.