Court Opinion

ID: 9726789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:08:48.020799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:30.778152
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring). I agree with Mr. Justice Kelly that the question of defendant’s guilt of actionable gross negligence was for the jury, and that the judgment for defendant notwithstanding the verdict of the jury should on that account be reversed.
I do not agree that consideration of defendant’s alternative motion for new trial — and hence his “conditional” cross-appeal — is now in order. The trial judge, having determined to enter judgment for defendant, has not as yet acted upon that motion. Until he does the issues presented thereby and brought here by cross-appeal are not ready for review. Defendant’s said motion and cross-appeal are pointedly addressed, not to alleged errors occurring at or during the trial,* but to alleged excessiveness of verdict and newly-discovered evidence (see opinion of Mr. Justice Kelly for details).
*210Since the question is due to arise when defendant’s motion for new trial comes to determination below, I record emphatic agreement with my Brother that the testimony of attorneys Jennings and Williams, if admissible at all, should be confined to the fact of consultation distinguished from communications made in the course of consultation. No attorney, previously consulted by a party to a subsequently instiT tuted action, should in the circumstances discloséd here be forced to testify otherwise.
I concur, then, in reversal' of the judgment for defendant. This means that plaintiff is entitled to judgment on the verdict, and that both parties are entitled from that point to pursue such proceedings as each may be advised, including right of defendant to press in the court below his pending and yet undecided motion for new trial.
Kavanagh and Souris, JJ., concurred with Black, J.

 See Peters v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 282 Mich 426; St. John v. Nichols, 331 Mich 148, 158, 159; George v. Wayne Circuit Judge, 336 Mich 543, 545-547; also old and new [347 Mich xxi] section 8 of Court Rule No 66 (1945) and author’s comment thereunder, Honigman, pp 632, 637, and 1960 supplement, pp 181, 186.