Court Opinion

ID: 9667440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:45:38.432814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:37.823005
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. In this case, the plaintiff tripped over a brick riser that surrounded a flowerbed along a walkway in a shopping center. The jury found the defendant shopping center 57% negligent, plaintiff 43% negligent, and awarded $10,000 in damages. The trial court then set aside the verdict and ordered judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
To affirm the trial court, we must find that the defendant was not negligent at all or, alternatively, that plaintiff alone was negligent in causing the injury. Moreover, we must find the defendant’s lack of negligence to be a fact on which reasonable men could not differ. I find such a finding incredible in light of the jury’s apportionment of negligence at 57% to the defendant and also in light of our holding in Krengel v. Midwest Automatic Photo, Inc., 295 Minn. 200, 203 N.W.2d 841 (1973). In Krengel, we affirmed a jury verdict for the plaintiff under almost identical circumstances.
In my opinion, the trial court usurped the role of the jury. By affirming the trial court, we are compounding the error and, in effect, overruling a case less than 10 years old. I would thus reverse and reinstate the verdict.