Court Opinion

ID: 9575735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:16:29.356151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:54.187319
License: Public Domain

Dethmers, J.
(dissenting in part). Mr. Justice
Adams has written that submission to the jury of special questions 2 and 3, said to involve issues of law rather than of fact, constituted reversible error under May v. Goulding, 365 Mich 143, Baker v. Saginaw City Lines, Inc., 366 Mich 180, McClelland v. Scholz, 366 Mich 423, and Beetz v. Rigg, 367 Mich 35. No criticism is made of question No 1, to which the jury gave the factual answer that plaintiff had not made observation for vehicles approaching from the south (from which direction defendant was coming) before she attempted to cross Log Cabin avenue.
In the May Case, it was held to be reversible error to submit to the jury questions which injected the-issue of defendants’ gross negligence into the case-when only ordinary negligence had been pleaded. In the instant case, questions 2 and 3 went to the issue of plaintiff’s contributory negligence which was pleaded and, defendant contends, was proved. In the May Case, this Court held the questions prejudicial as calling for answers on issues of law rather than fact, especially because of repeated instructions pertaining to the false issue of gross negligence, injected by those questions, which was not framable under the pleadings and proofs in that case. Here the questions go to the heart of the pleadings and proofs on an issue which was framed thereby. Accordingly, May should not be deemed compelling of reversal here.
In Baker, as Justice Adams states, the submitted question was whether defendant driver was guilty of negligence. This Court held its submission to the-jury did not amount to reversible error, not only because plaintiff had not objected to it on trial, as was done here, but, also, as this Court, speaking *188through Mr. Justice Kavanagh, said (p 185), because the question went to “one of the ultimate factual issues determinative of defendant’s liability * * * and the jury’s answer thereto having been consistent with the general verdict.” And so, in the case at bar, the questions bore directly on factual issues determinative of plaintiff’s contributory negligence and, hence, of defendant’s liability, and the jury’s answers were consistent with their general verdict for defendant. Baker, distinguishable only for lack of objection to the question at trial, seems determinative of affirmance here.
In Reetz, it was held that plaintiff’s objection, made after verdict, to the court’s informing the jury that 1 of the special questions had been submitted by defendant, came too late. That is scarcely authority for reversing the verdict for defendant here on the ground that the questions went to issues of law rather than fact.
With respect to McClelland v. Scholz, supra, Mr. Justice Adams properly observes that we there held improper special verdicts “requiring conclusions with regard to the law, especially if the same tend to confuse the jury.” It is to be noted that involved there were special verdicts not, as here, special questions and an accompanying, general verdict which, as Mr. Justice Kavanagh wrote in Baker, was consistent with the jury answers to the special questions. In McClelland, the court, despite the jury’s answers to the first 3 fact questions favorable to plaintiff, nonetheless-granted defendant’s motion for a directed verdict on the ground that the jury’s failure to answer the next 3 special verdicts as to proximate cause established that plaintiff had failed to prove that essential element of his case. Here, the jury manifestly was not confused by the questions, as in McClelland, but was consistent in answering the first question of fact favorably to defendant, the next 2 *189questions, claimed to relate to issues of law, also-favorably to defendant on the basis of the court’s instructions on the law applicable thereto, and then rendering a general verdict for defendant, making applicable Mr. Justice Kavanagh’s quoted language in Baker.
"Submission of the questions ought not to be considered reversible error.. They .were, after all, the ques- .. tions which the jurors needed to ask themselves and • answer in their own minds, b.y application to their ■findings of facts of "the court’s instructions as to law, before they could decide on a general verdict. The mere fact that they also answered them.in writing :and announced the'answers to the court should not 'render théir general verdict, consistent therewith, any less valid. '
1 agree with Mr. Justice Adams’ views and conclusions concerning the matter of jury tampering and ’excusing óf a juror. ......
.. The judgment-should be affirmed. Costs to defend•ant." ¡-: - .: - • •
Carr, C. J., and Kelly, J., concurred with Dethmers, J.