Court Opinion

ID: 9702358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:08:01.342528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:36.685488
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(dissenting in part, concurring in part).
I would affirm the judgment.
In its entirety, Instruction No. 10 reads as follows:
“In civil actions, the party who asserts the affirmative of an issue must prove that issue by a preponderance of the evidence.
“By a preponderance of the evidence is meant such evidence as, when weighed with that opposed to it, has more convincing force and from which it results that the greater probability of truth lies therein. In the event that the evidence is evenly balanced so that you are unable to say that the evidence on either side of an issue preponderates, that is, has the greater convincing force, then your finding upon that issue must be against the party who had the burden of proving it. In the first action, the Plaintiff, Jill Marie Meyer, has the burden of proving the following issues:
1. That the Defendant was negligent, and
2. That the Defendant’s negligence was the proximate cause of her injuries.
“In the second action, the Plaintiffs, Robert L. Meyer and Mary Lou Meyer, have the burden of proving the following issues:
1. That the Defendant was negligent, and
2. That the Defendant’s negligence was the proximate cause of their damages.
“You are instructed that if you find that the accident in question came about through circumstances in which the Defendant was not guilty of negligence, which proximately caused the accident *113and any resulting injuries, then your verdict should be for the Defendant.
“In determining whether or not an issue has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence, you should consider all of the evidence bearing upon that issue, regardless of who produced it.”
Instruction No. 11 reads:
“When the expression ‘proximate cause’ is used, it means that cause which is an immediate cause and which, in natural or probable sequence, produced the injury complained of. It is a cause without which the injury would not have been sustained. It need not be the only cause, nor the last or nearest cause. It is sufficient if it concurs with some other cause acting at the same time, which in combination with it, causes the injury.
“In other words, it is immaterial that there is no suit commenced against Ronald Cornelison, driver of the other vehicle, as long as you find that the Defendant, Daryl Johnson was negligent and his negligence was a contributing or concurring cause of the accident.”
Instruction No. 12 reads:
“More than one person may be responsible for causing injury to another. If you find that the defendant was negligent and that his negligence was a proximate cause of the accident involved herein, it is not a defense that some third person, not a party to this action, was or may have been partly responsible. Therefore, if you find the defendant was negligent, and that but for his negligence the accident would not have happened, he cannot be relieved of any liability to the plaintiffs by claiming that somebody else, not a party to this action, was in part at fault.”
When read in the light of these three instructions, the challenged portion of Instruction No. 10 is nothing more than a correct statement that unless defendant was guilty of negligence that was a proximate cause of the accident, the jury should find for defendant. In view of the fact that the jury could very well have found from the evidence that Ronald Cornelison was driving in the center of the road and that it was his negligence that was the proximate cause of the accident, it was not error for the court to give Instruction No. 10 in the form in which it appears.
The resume of facts set forth in the majority opinion is sufficient to demonstrate that the evidence justified giving of the sudden emergency instruction. Assuming that the majority is correct in stating that there was no other course of action available to defendant and that therefore technically the instruction should not have been given, I do not see how this seriously prejudiced plaintiffs. If defendant’s car ended up near the middle of the road, it was because he was either driving on that portion of the road immediately prior to the accident or because he slid into the middle of the road after applying his brakes when suddenly confronted by the Cornelison vehicle. The jury obviously found the latter situation to have been the case, and I do not see how the result would have been any different had the court given the instruction that the majority opinion holds should have been given. Under the principles expressed in Dwyer v. Christensen, 77 S.D. 381, 92 N.W.2d 199, and recently reaffirmed by this court in Dimmer v. Westegaard, S.D., 251 N.W.2d 676, the error, if any, should be held to be nonprejudicial.
I agree with the majority opinion’s treatment of the res judicata question.
I am authorized to state that Justice MORGAN joins in this concurrence and dissent.