Court Opinion

ID: 9584275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:46:14.489123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:21.947338
License: Public Domain

*722Bell, Chief Judge,
concurring in the judgment only. With all due respect to the views of my colleagues, I must disagree with those expressed in both the majority opinion (Judge Deen) and the dissent (Presiding Judge Jordan).
Division 1 as written by the majority is confusing and to a large degree inaccurate. The dissent is forthright and clear but under the facts of this case and the decisions construing the F. E. L. A. the dissent is harshly inaccurate.
The court charged all that was essential to guide the jury in an F. E. L. A. case. Among other things the court instructed the jury: That contributory negligence of the employee will not bar recovery but will proportionately diminish the damages; that the employee does not assume the risk of his employment where injury results in whole or in part from the negligence of the defendant; that if the plaintiff’s injury was caused solely by his own negligence he could not recover; that the burden is upon the defendant to provide a reasonably safe place for employees to work, and that where causal negligence is attributable partly to the employer and partly to the employee the employee shall recover only a proportional amount bearing the same relation to the full amount as the negligence attributable to the carrier bears to the entire negligence attributable to both.
While it would not have been erroneous for the court to have charged the defendant’s request that the plaintiff was under a duty to exercise ordinary care for his own safety, in view of the full charge of the court the failure to so charge in this F. E. L. A. case was harmless.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance only.
It should be pointed out that with only 3 of the judges concurring, Division 1 of the opinion is not a binding precedent.