Court Opinion

ID: 9445809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:38:27.746959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:24.751005
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I concur in all of the conclusions of the majority opinion, and also with its statements of fact and its reasoning except as to one issue. That single issue relates to the treatment by the trial judge -of the request by the jury for further instructions. The majority opinion states that the trial judge failed to read verbatim the request of the jury to counsel for the parties. This statement is correct as far as it goes but the reality is, ■as appears from the quotation in the majority opinion, that the trial judge read -only a “Part” of the request. The word “Part” was the term employed by the trial judge himself.
The first portion of the request which was read verbatim related to the conclusion expressed by some members of the jury that they “felt” the plaintiff “fell and did not get hit by the draft.” That portion of the request which was not read ■obviously dealt, as appears from the subsequent instructions given by the trial judge to the jury, at least in part, with the irrelevant issue of “compensation.” Whether any other issue was touched upon in the jury’s request does not appear for, though the request was in writing, it has not been preserved and is not in the record.
Good practice, in my opinion, would require that such a request should be preserved and made a part of the record. It would then be possible for counsel in the court below and for the reviewing court to know precisely what the issues were which were presented by the request. But under the circumstances of the case at bar, I think it would not be just to hold that by not including the request in the record or informing counsel fully as to its contents the trial judge committed such fundamental error as to require reversal of the judgment. As has been said the trial judge stated in open court and in the presence of counsel for both parties that “Part” of the request was as he stated it to be. It would be futile to labor here the meaning of the word, part. When the trial judge made use of that word it should have been apparent to counsel, learned in the law and the English language, that the portion of the request read was not the whole of it. If counsel desired all of the request to be read to them and had so indicated there can be no doubt but that the trial judge would have read the whole of the request into the record or at least have exhibited the request to counsel.
Counsel for both parties had full opportunity to request information as to, or a reading of, the unread portion of the request and could have objected validly if the trial judge had refused to inform them. Neither counsel made any objection to what the trial judge did. In short counsel let the opportunity for further elucidation of the request go by at the critical time and counsel for the plaintiff, as the majority opinion states, raised this issue only on appeal. Under all the circumstances I could not hold that the plaintiff was denied due process *769of law or that the jury system was jeopardized by the trial judge’s omission. The Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C., outline the course which counsel for the plaintiff should have followed at the trial if he had thought the issue was one of importance. I concur in the majority view that the judgment must be affirmed.