Court Opinion

ID: 7817454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:41:16.611009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:38.343114
License: Public Domain

John A. Fogleman, Justice, concurring. I concur in the majority opinion and its disposition of the case. My concurrence in the remand of the case is not for the reasons stated in the majority opinion, however. In view of my dissent from the remand in St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Clemons, 242 Ark. 707, 415 S. W. 2d 332, I feel that I should express my reasons for this concurrence. There is direct precedent for remanding a case in which judgment based on a jury verdict is reversed for insufficiency of the evidence to support it. The touchstone for the departure from the usual disposition in such case is that there he some unusual circumstance to justify the different treatment. It has been held that such unusual circumstance exists when the lack of substantial evidence is due to the failure of the plaintiff to show causation where expert testimony might have supplied the deficiency. In Reynolds Metal Company v. Ball, 217 Ark. 579, 232 S. W. 2d 441, the appellee-plaintiff sought to recover from the appellant for damage to his farm and pasture land. He contended that the damage was caused by sediment from the alumina extraction plant of the appellant some six or seven miles upstream. The plaintiff failed to prove that the sediment came from the plant and could only testify that he never had any of the sediment until the plant went in. He also failed to prove that the sediment included chemical constituents that were poisonous to vegetation. This court held that the trial court should have directed a verdict, but found that there were special circumstances to justify remanding the cause for a new trial rather than dismissing. The identical factors relied on in that case are the deficiencies in appellees’ proof in this ease, so I agree that a remand is proper here, as I consider that precedent controlling.