Court Opinion

ID: 9858125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:15:24.095695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:09.633545
License: Public Domain

STONE, Judge
(concurring in result).
We concur in what has been written in the principal opinion concerning plaintiff’s contributory negligence as a matter of law, and also in the conclusion that the judgment for plaintiff on defendant’s counterclaim should be affirmed. These comments pertain primarily to defendant’s insistence that he should have a new trial on his counterclaim for refusal of instruction D-7, his principal verdict-directing instruction on the counterclaim.
Assuming (for the purposes of this discussion) that defendant was not contributorily negligent as a matter of law and that the jury should have been instructed as to the issues on his counterclaim, we agree that nevertheless the duty rested upon his counsel, not upon the court, to formulate an instruction (or instructions) “informing the jury what facts, if proven” would have warranted the jury in returning a verdict for defendant on his counterclaim [Dorman v. East St. Louis Ry. Co., 335 Mo. 1082, 1092, 75 S.W.2d 854, 859], and that, for refusal of an instruction offered by his counsel in attempted discharge of that duty, defendant is in no position to complain unless the proffered instruction was “within the issues, in proper form, correctly presenting (his) theory of the case.” Salzman v. Athletic Tea Co., Mo.App., 236 S.W. 907, 908. (All emphasis herein is ours.)
The negligence sought to be submitted in instruction D-7 might be referred to appropriately as “one compound negligent act” [compare Devoto v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.App., 251 S.W.2d 355, 358], i. e., plaintiff’s failure to maintain a proper lookout for defendant’s automobile and to stop, slow down or swerve his own automobile. Although his duty to maintain a careful lookout was a continuous one, plaintiff’s duty to act in any other respect submitted in instruction D-7, i. e., to stop, slacken speed or swerve, would have arisen only when plaintiff saw or realized, or in the exercise of the highest degree of care could have seen or realized, that there was danger of a collision with defendant’s automobile. Stakelback v. Neff, Mo.App., 13 S.W.2d 575, 577; Devoto v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo. App., 238 S.W.2d 66, 72-73; Id., Mo.App., 251 S.W.2d 355, 358-359; Greenwood v. Bridgeways, Inc., Mo.App., 243 S.W.2d 111, 114(4, 5); Rayburn v. Fricke, Mo.App., 243 S.W.2d 768, 770; Burke v. Renick, Mo.App., 249 S.W.2d 513, 517. But, instruction D-7 made no reference to, and required no finding concerning, the location or speed of either vehicle when plaintiff, in the maintenance of a proper lookout, could have seen defendant’s automobile or become aware of impending danger; and, on the authority of the last-cited group of cases, the giving of instruction D-7, similar in form and substance to the instructions considered in those cases, might well have constituted reversible error.
In the instant case, the testimony was sharply-conflicting as to certain important factual matters, i. e., (1) the place from which and the time at which plaintiff, in the exercise of the highest degree of care, could have discovered defendant’s westbound automobile, (2) the location of defendant’s automobile when it first could have been sighted by plaintiff, and (3) the point of impact between the automobiles. We note also the significant admission by defendant that plaintiff entered the intersection first and “was probably halfway across the south side of Stanley Street” when defendant applied his brakes.
Reduced to its simplest terms, instruction D-7 directed a verdict upon nothing more than generalized findings that “plaintiff failed to keep a lookout for and to- see the defendant’s automobile * * * and failed to stop or slow down or swerve his automobile so as to avoid the collision, and that such failure, if any * * * directly caused the collision.” Under instruc*304tion D-7, the jury might have returned a verdict for defendant irrespective of his own conduct and without even a generalized finding that plaintiff had failed to exercise the highest degree of care or was negligent. In fact, literal acceptance of instruction D-7 would have compelled a verdict for defendant, for obviously the conclusion would have been inescapable, absent any restriction as to the place where and the time when plaintiff’s duty to take precautionary action arose, that the collision was caused by plaintiff’s failure to maintain a lookout and to stop, slow down or swerve “so as to avoid the collision.”
We determine the legal sufficiency of an instruction, without regard to hyper-technical niceties, by inquiring “whether average laymen have been sufficiently apprised of the necessary facts to be found by them and of the correct legal conclusions which follow” [Sauer v. Winkler, Mo., 263 S.W.2d 370, 374(2); Stoessel v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo., 269 S.W.2d 41, 43(2)], but issues dependent Upon findings as to disputed facts “may not be cryptically submitted to and found by the jury on the hypothesis of abstractions only.” Ketcham v. Thomas, Mo., 283 S.W. 2d 642, 651, and cases there cited. See also Rayburn v. Fricke, supra, 243 S.W.2d loc. cit. 771(1). No instruction, so lean and gaunt in its recitals and so generalized and abstract in its nature as is instruction D-7, has come to our attention as approved for submission of similar issues. See Randall v. Steelman, Mo.App., 294 S.W.2d 588, 593. And, by way of example, contrast the approved instructions quoted or epitomized in Plooper v. Conrad, 364 Mo. 176, 260 S.W.2d 496, 499; Barnes v. Vandergrift, 364 Mo. 829, 269 S.W.2d 13, 17; Lee v. Liberty Bell Oil Co., Mo., 291, S.W.2d 132, 136; Dennison v. Whaley, Mo.App., 285 S.W.2d 73, 76.
Having in mind also that a judgment should be- reversed only for error “materially affecting the merits of the action” [Section 512.160(2), -RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S.] and that the question before, us is whether the refusal of instruction D-7 constituted reversible error, not whether the giving of this instruction would have been such error — “a distinction which is of importance in determining the measure of exactitude which the reviewing court will demand of the instruction” [Walnut Park Loan & Investment Ass’n v. Hennkens, Mo.App., 121 S.W.2d 179, 180] — we are satisfied that the trial court should not be convicted of reversible error for refusal to give instruction D-7, and that the judgment for plaintiff on defendant’s counterclaim should be affirmed.
RUARK, J., concurs in separate opinion of STONE, J.