Court Opinion

ID: 9761368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:41:00.121331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:23.184038
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts :
I concur in so much of the majority opinion as reverses the action of the trial court in granting defendant-appellee’s motion for judgment n.o.v. I dissent, however, from the majority’s action in granting defendant-appellee a new trial and would remand the case with directions to reinstate the jury verdict.
*145Not only did defendant-appellee not raise the correctness of the court’s instructions on this appeal, it specifically disclaimed any complaint with respect thereto, stating, in its brief, that the correctness of the charge is not in issue.1 This is of itself sufficient to preclude the majority’s action in ordering a new trial. Moreover, the record discloses that at trial no specific exception was taken by defendant-appellee to the charge,2 In the absence of such an exception, I believe it inappropriate to grant a new trial on the basis of an instruction which could and should have been excepted to at trial, if defendant-appellee’s counsel regarded it erroneous and harmful to his client’s interests. Having failed to express any dissatisfaction at trial, where the matter was subject to correction, I would not permit defendant-appellee to impose this extensive litigation for the second time on the plaintiff and our already overburdened trial courts.
To paraphrase a view which I have previously expressed, to permit defendant-appellee to obtain a second trial, on the ground that instructions, not specifically excepted to, were erroneous, in light of the issues involved, would do a great injustice to countless numbers of persons who are compelled to endure oppressive delay or to settle claims at a fraction of their value because timely judicial relief was not available. While I would heartily. approve of ordering a new trial in any case in which such action would be in the interest *146of justice, I find no justice in setting aside the endeavors of all those who participated in the trial below merely because the majority discerns some disadvantage, problematical at best, to defendant-appellee, a disadvantage which defendant-appellee had every opportunity to discern and to seek to have rectified at trial. See Lobalzo v. Varoli, 422 Pa. 5, 7, 8, 220 A. 2d 634, 636 (1966) (concurring opinion); Kersey Mfg. Co. v. Rozic, 422 Pa. 564, 570, 222 A. 2d 713, 716 (1966) (concurring opinion).
Mr. Justice Mtjsmanno joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.

 Brief of appellee, p. 6.

 The following statement was made by appellee-defendant’s counsel, during an interchange with the trial judge following the charge: “I have no exceptions to take to the charge. I want to protect my position on the record. I would like to except to your Honor’s refusal of our supplemental requests for charge, numbers 17, 18 and 19.” It should be noted, however, that the majority does not predicate its grant of a new trial on the court’s disposition of defendant-appellee’s points for charge.