Court Opinion

ID: 9640489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:07:01.121989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:30.271047
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring.
The question whether we should direct entry of judgment in favor of the doctor, as Judge Ferren argues, or order a new trial, as Judge Reid suggests, is a close and difficult one. On balance, I agree with Judge Ferren and join his main opinion, which thus becomes the opinion of the court.
I write separately, however, because I cannot agree with the “Separate Statement” issued by my colleagues — a majority of the division. In that “Separate Statement,” the majority uses this case, which has not heretofore featured any issue of comparative negligence, as a vehicle for advocating a very significant change in the law of torts in the District of Columbia. It may or may not be in the interests of justice to abandon this jurisdiction’s longstanding rule that contributory negligence generally bars recovery. If a change is desirable, then the obvious question arises *963whether such a radical departure from our well-entrenched substantive law should be effected by the court or by the legislature. The .nettle that my colleagues have grasped implicates sophisticated and difficult questions of judicial and legislative policy. It is not consistent with conventional judicial norms, in my opinion, for judges to volunteer their personal policy preferences on this controversial subject when the issues before the court are entirely different.
Until today, this case has been solely about the applicability to the record before us of the doctrine of “last clear chance.” Neither party has raised, in the trial court or on appeal, the question whether this court should adopt a “comparative negligence” approach. Because the issue was not raised, it has not been briefed. The trial judge has had nothing to say about it. In my own ease, I acknowledge that I am undecided regarding whether this court should overrule its contributory negligence precedents. Although it has been almost half a century since I entered law school in 1953, I have never seen or heard the point systematically debated in a court of law, with authorities on both sides of the issue set forth in written submissions, and with the court having the opportunity to question counsel at oral argument. If we were to decide to replace the contributory negligence rule without a legislative enactment, we should do so in the orderly manner described above, and we should not volunteer conclusions until arguments for each point of view have been presented to us.
As in Allen v. United States, 603 A.2d 1219, 1228-29 n. 20 (D.C.1992) (en banc), I “do not think that this is an appropriate occasion to provide unsolicited guidance to the trial court [or to anyone else] on an issue different from the one which the parties briefed and which we [have been called upon] to decide.” My colleagues’ views as to whether or not the doctrine of comparative negligence should be adopted “have not been tested by the fires of adversary presentation.” Id. at 1229 n. 20 (quoting United States v. Crawley, 837 F.2d 291, 293 (7th Cir.1988)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, my colleagues’ “Separate Statement” has no effect whatever on the outcome of this case; their opinion is purely advisory. It is beyond the authority of a trial court, Smith v. Smith, 310 A.2d 229, 231 (D.C.1973), or of an appellate court, District of Columbia v. Wical Ltd. P’ship, 630 A.2d 174 (D.C.1993), “to issue advisory opinions regarding questions which may or may not arise.” Id. at 182. “Courts should not decide more than the occasion demands,” id. (citation omitted), and,
[a]s a general rule, this court will decide only such questions as are necessary for a determination of the case presented for consideration, and will not render decisions in advance of such necessity.
Id. (quoting Johnson v. Morris, 87 Wash.2d 922, 557 P.2d 1299, 1305 (1976) (en banc)).
To be sure, my colleagues are not “deciding” whether we should adopt comparative negligence principles, because only the en banc court could do that. M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310, 312 (D.C.1971). Nevertheless, they are volunteering views which go far beyond the case before us, and they are doing so without an adversarial crossing of swords on the issue. I believe that doing so is contrary to prudent canons of judicial restraint.
Finally, I raise a delicate matter which each judge must determine for himself or herself. If I were to volunteer views on an issue of this kind in a case in which that issue has not been presented or argued, I would apprehend that, if the issue did arise in the normal course in some future case, it would be difficult to avoid the appearance of having pre-judged that case without first having heard the parties’ argu*964ments. My two colleagues, both of whom I hold in very high esteem, may not share that concern, and I respect their views on the matter. Nevertheless, appearances count, and I cannot help thinking that the appearance of impartiality and of openness to persuasion is compromised when defini~ tive views are announced, as they have been here, without prior briefing or argument. For this reason also, I think it unwise to volunteer the kind of advisory opinion that a majority of the division issues today.