Court Opinion

ID: 9442903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:03:28.815326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:16.704483
License: Public Domain

COLLET, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the majority that the evidence was insufficient to submit the issue of the negligent performance of the contract of employment to the jury. In reaching that conclusion I accept the conclusion of the trial court that there was adequate evidence to support the jury’s finding that Mr. Drake, who did the spraying, was acting as the agent of the defendant Terry. Since Drake should, therefore, for purposes of this case, be treated as the agent of the defendant, the defendant was under the obligation to impart to his agent any information which he had, which a reasonably prudent person would pass on to an agent, concerning the proper practice to follow in carrying out the business of spraying. It seems to me that the follow*174ing facts justify the submission of the issue of negligence to the jury.
Plaintiff, a farmer, lived on a farm in Williams County, North'Dakota. In May, 1948, he decided to spray his growing wheat crop for the purpose of killing the weeds in the wheat. He had heard of the use of a spray called “2,4-D”, or “Weed-No-More”, for that purpose. On May 25, 1948, he purchased 50 gallons of that chemical and a sprayer designed to be used with a tractor, for the purpose of doing the spraying himself. He had never before used this or any other kind of spray for this purpose. He found after purchasing the ground sprayer and the spray that a tractor was not available to pull the ground sprayer, and since it was “getting late” to spray, he “figured” that he had better get the spraying done by plane. He had never had spraying done by plane, but he had heard that such was an effective and satisfactory way of doing it. On May 25 he had heard of the defendant Terry. On June 7, 1948, he went to the Farmers’ Elevator at Grenora, North Dakota, where he had purchased the spray, and left an order there with Mr. Dash Comfort, who had been making arrangements for spraying by plane as an accommodation to the farmers and also the sprayers, for a plane to come and spray his wheat fields. The next day he purchased the quantity of fuel oil recommended by Mr. Comfort to be mixed with the chemical for spraying by plane. The plane not having arrived by the 14th, plaintiff went back to Mr. Comfort and renewed the request for a plane. On the evening of June 15, about 7:0O o’clock, Mr. Terry’s plane arrived and landed on an adjoining farm. Seeing it land, plaintiff went in his automobile to meet the plane. He took the pilot, Mr. Drake, back to his farm in his car and showed Mr. Drake the fields that were to be sprayed. He did not know Drake and Drake did not know him. Plaintiff did not know how experienced in spraying wheat with “2,4-D” Drake was, and Drake had no knowledge of plaintiff’s experience. It developed at the trial that Drake had been engaged in the business for several years and had sprayed many thousand acres of wheat with “2,4 — D”, and that Terry had more than twenty planes located in North Dakota doing this kind of work at the time. Plaintiff assumed Drake knew all about how and when to spray wheat with this chemical. Plaintiff did not know that the spraying of wheat with this chemical at a certain stage of its growth had been found by experimentation to be very injurious and that bulletins had been issued by the manufacturers and by the state agricultural authorities of North Dakota warning against its use at that stage, described as the “jointing” or “box” stage. Drake and Terry both knew of those warnings. Drake did not examine the wheat pointed out to him by plaintiff from the automobile to see what stage it was in. He says he was not a wheat farmer and would not have known if he had looked. Neither did he ask plaintiff what stage the wheat was in or tell him that it should not be sprayed when at the jointing or box stage. Each apparently assumed that the Mother knew what he was doing, asked no questions to determine the other’s knowledge, and, it is reasonable to assume, relied on the other’s knowledge. The chemical was mixed with the oil at Drake’s plane, Drake approving the mixture recommended by Mr. Comfort. The mixture was loaded into the plane and the spraying immediately done. A few days later plaintiff discovered that the wheat sprayed had a dead brownish-black color. When it was harvested, the yield for the 150 acres sprayed was approximately four to five bushels per acre, while the remainder of plaintiff’s land, seeded under similar circumstances, had a yield of from 12 to 18 bushels per acre.
It seems to me that the serious question concerning the sufficiency of the evidence is whether there was adequate evidence of Drake’s negligence in not examining the wheat to determine whether it was in the stage when he knew, or should have known, it should not be sprayed. The trial court submitted that question to the jury after instructing the jury what would constitute negligence under the circumstances; i. e., whether a reasonably careful and prudent person, possessing the knowledge which the evidence showed Drake possessed, in the *175exercise of reasonable care would have examined the wheat or made inquiry concerning its stage of growth. It should, of course, be borne in mind that we must, and do, accept as true the facts and reasonable inferences therefrom which are most favorable to the jury’s conclusion. And we should relegate to the jury the right to reject Drake’s statement that he would not have known what stage the wheat was in had he examined it, and hold him possessed of the knowledge which the jury had a right to conclude he had from his admitted long and extensive experience in this line of work. It is patent from the verdict that the jury did find that Drake knew, and plaintiff did not, that wheat should not be sprayed at a certain stage. There is also adequate evidence that the spraying of the wheat at its then stage was the cause of plaintiff’s loss in yield. The trial court submitted that question to the jury and there was no complaint of the form of the instruction. The problem resolves itself, therefore, into the question of whether reasonable minds may honestly differ as to whether a reasonably prudent person would, under the circumstances of this case, have examined the wheat. The position taken by defendant at the trial that plaintiff fixed the time for spraying by asking that it be done when it was done, that he was a wheat farmer and could and should be presumed to know when his wheat could safely have been sprayed, and therefore should not now be heard to say that defendant was negligent in not examining the wheat and telling him that it should not then be sprayed, is an appealing position. The jury might well have accepted it. But still, that does not answer the question of whether reasonable minds might honestly differ as to whether a reasonably prudent person, experienced in this business, knowing that there was a stage at which wheat should not be sprayed, and having due regard for doing a good job, would have taken some action designed to ascertain whether it would be injurious to the wheat to spray it at that time. This court said in Walkup v. Bardsley, 8 Cir., 111 F.2d 789, loc. cit. 791: “It is only where the evidence upon any issue is all on one side or so overwhelmingly on one side as to leave no doubt what the fact is, that the court should direct a verdict. (Citing cases.) The question of negligence is usually one of fact for the jury. It is only where the facts are such that all reasonable men must draw the same conclusion from them that the question of negligence becomes one of law for the court. (Citing cases.)” (Italics ours.)
I am unable to reach the conclusion that all reasonable men must conclude from the evidence in this case that Mr. Drake was not negligent in failing to ascertain whether the wheat was in the stage when he knew or should have known it should not have been sprayed. The question of his negligence was therefore, in my opinion, one for the jury.
I find no error which in my judgment would justify the reversal, and therefore I would affirm the judgment.