Court Opinion

ID: 9543864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:49:57.835807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:20.778119
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Chief Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I do not agree that the instructions given regarding the issue of the hospital’s liability gave such undue emphasis to a phase of the case favorable to the hospital as to require reversal. When considered as a whole, the instructions present a full and correct statement of the applicable law. Jorgenson v. Dronebarger, 82 S.D. 213, 143 N.W.2d 869. As the trial court pointed out to counsel during the settling of the instructions, Instruction No. 5 explained the liability of the hospital under the doctrine of principal and agent. Instruction No. 15 explained to the jury that the hospital could be independently liable for its failure to provide reasonable care to Mr. Csoka. Appellant’s counsel argued both theories of liability to the jury, and I therefore fail to see how appellant can complain that the instructions were inconsistent or incomplete.*
I concur in the majority opinion with respect to the disposition of other issues raised by the appeal.

 Although the record is somewhat confused on this issue, I believe that the trial court intended to give an instruction similar to that requested by appellant regarding the duty of the jury to consider the instructions as a whole. When presented with the proposed instruction, the trial court indicated that a similar instruction was contained in the court’s proposed instructions. When appellant’s counsel replied that he did not see it there, the trial judge made an ambiguous reference to the fact that he thought that the instruction was contained in “the criminal set.” My point is that the trial court did not reject out of hand appellant’s proposed instruction on this issue and that the failure to give such an instruction apparently resulted more from oversight and from the pressures of the moment than from a deliberate decision not to give what is routinely considered to be a “stock” instruction.