Court Opinion

ID: 9741682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:00:29.600989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:25.468427
License: Public Domain

Voelker, J.
(concurring in reversal). Boiled down to its essentials, the basic question in this case is whether the trial judge was warranted, under the *58rule of favorable view, in taking the questions of negligence and contributory negligence away from the jury. Under the circumstances of this case we think he was not. We have recently been at some pains to declare that the question of plaintiff’s contributory negligence should usually be judged not alone by what the plaintiff did or failed to do, but also by the conjoining facts of what in the way of legal duty the plaintiff reasonably had a right to expect from the defendant (Hoffman v. Burkhead, 353 Mich 47, 56, quoting approvingly from Weller v. Mancha, 351 Mich 50, 67).
Had the crew of the switch engine dismounted and waved the plaintiff across the tracks or, again, had some other railroad employee done so, erroneously telling the plaintiff that the flasher signals were out of order, could the defendant railroad have blandly wrapped the mantle of the statute around itself to avoid possible liability? We think not. While its conduct in this case was scarcely so blatant and'“invitational” we do think that reasonable men might well conclude under these circumstances that the defendant may have negligently lulled the plaintiff into a false sense of security and in effect have negligently lured him to his harm. At least we think a fair jury question was presented on that score. Moreover, that trained lawyers on this Court should in this case split over the question is perhaps some further indication that the disputed issues should more properly have been left to the jury under appropriate instructions.