Court Opinion

ID: 9717317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:01:28.663031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:52.490649
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE STOUDER, specially concurring: I agree with the majority of the court that the judgment of the trial court granting a new trial should be reversed. However, the majority seems to either hold or assume that the trial court erred in failing to respond affirmatively to the jury’s questions. If the majority’s opinion may be construed as merely assuming for the purpose of argument that the trial court’s action in declining to offer additional instruction to the jury “might” be error, then I would agree with the decision completely. To the extent that the opinion suggests the trial court’s action was an abuse of discretion and hence erroneous but not sufficiently erroneous to constitute plain error, then I disagree with the holding. In my opinion the court acted properly in declining to instruct the jury further and whatever confusion resulted was not a failure of instruction but a failure of argument. Plaintiff’s emphasis on amputation both as evidence and argument before the jury may have tended to obscure the issues, but in the final analysis, the jury recognized the substance of the facts the plaintiff was required to prove and found such proof wanting. GORMAN, J., concurs.