Court Opinion

ID: 9713384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:14:34.001333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.440856
License: Public Domain

Dethmers, C. J.
(concurring in result). Statements in an opinion concerning some rule of law, however illuminating, are, when not' necessary to decision of the case, but dicta. People v. Case, 220 Mich 379 (27 ALR 686); Robinson v. Gordon Oil Co., 266 Mich 65. Through the several opinions in. this case the participating members of this Court say, unanimously; • that - by reason - of- plaintiff’sadmissions, in the pleadings and at pretrial, that plaintiff’s decedent failed to maintain a reasonable and proper lookout, he must be held to have been guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law; and, accordingly, judgment below for plaintiff is reversed and the case remanded for entry of judgment of no cause for action in favor of defendants. I agree. This epitomizes reasoning accepted by all the Justices as controlling of decision for reversal. It encompasses all that is necessary to that decision.
The court below did not instruct the jury on the subject of presumption of freedom from contributory negligence as applied to plaintiff’s decedent; plaintiff does not here complain on that account, saying, in her brief, that that is a question which is not before this Court for review; and, naturally enough, *478defendants, who here seek and obtain reversal of judgment for plaintiff, approve the lower court’s failure to instruct that plaintiff’s decedent was, or under circumstances might be, entitled to the benefit of such presumption. How could consideration of the circumstances under which a decedent should be presumed to havé maintained a.-proper lookout be pertinent .or necessary to decision in this case in which plaintiff flatly admits that, as a matter of fact, her decedent did hot do so I Consequently, I reserve expression of my views concerning the correctness of previous decisions of this Court on that subject and the circumstances ■'under which the presumption should be indulged for a case where it is necessary to decision.and controlling of result., - ■ I concur in reversal; without -new trial, with costs to defendants. -
Sharpe and Kelly, JJ., concurred with Dethmers, C. J,
. Edwards; J., took no part in'the decision of this case.