Court Opinion

ID: 9765445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:03:02.290561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:10.013429
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, dissenting in part and concurring in part. I am pleased to see that the majority has, somewhat belatedly, joined my dissent in Penny v. Phillips, 298 Ark. 481, 769 S.W.2d 4 (1989). The similarities between this case and Penny, decided a mere seven months ago, are striking. Penny involved a teenage-driver who didn’t see a curve and skidded off a road into a ditch, injuring a passenger. The driver had not been speeding, drinking, or violating any highway rule at the time of the accident, and the jury found no negligence on his or his parents’ part. The trial court ruled that the verdict was clearly against the preponderance of the evidence, and this court affirmed his order for a new trial, noting: “[W]here the trial court has ordered a new trial, it is more difficult to establish an abuse of discretion than when a new trial is denied.” 298 Ark. at 483, 769 S.W.2d at 5. The language and reasoning in Penny is weighted almost totally toward the trial court’s discretionary powers. Little attention is paid to the jury’s function as finder of fact or to the actual application of the amended clause in ARCP Rule 59(a)(6) — “clearly against a preponderance of the evidence.” As I stated in my dissent in Penny: “The evidence set out in the opinion is sufficient to establish that the facts were fairly evenly divided, thereby presenting a jury question. ... It seems to me that the trial court substituted its judgment for that of the jury.” 298 Ark. at 484, 769 S.W.2d at 6. The Penny decision is an anomaly in the law as it has developed since our holding in Clayton v. Wagnon, 276 Ark. 124, 633 S.W.2d 19 (1982). It overturned seven years’ worth of opinions interpreting and applying the 1982 amendment to Rule 59(a)(6) and, as I pointed out in my dissent, “reverted to the rule as it existed prior” to Clayton and the amended rule. The majority opinion in the present case makes no attempt to come to terms with the peculiarity of Penny. Now, after I have come to accept the majority decision in Penny as the definitive word on this issue, I find that a decision has been reached in this case totally at odds with the majority’s view as expressed on May 1 of this year. I am gratified that the majority now agrees with my dissent in Penny and with the court’s holdings in Clayton v. Wagnon and Wilson v. Kobera, 295 Ark. 201, 748 S.W.2d 30 (1988), among others. Still, however, the question remains: If the decision in Penny was right, how can the decision in this case — -and the body of cases from Clayton to Penny — also be right? The concluding paragraph in Penny is squarely on point with the present case and deserves to be quoted: Having examined the evidence carefully, we conclude that the appellants have failed to show that the trial court’s discretion was abused. In addition to having heard the testimony in its entirety, the trial court had the benefit of photographs and a diagram of the accident scene which are not in the abstract. There is no contention that Dana Phillips was in any manner at fault and the testimony of Chris Penny, however one may choose to interpret it, points unerringly to a failure to maintain a proper lookout or a failure to maintain proper control over his vehicle as proximate causes of the collision. 298 Ark. at 483-484, 769 S.W.2d at 5-6. In this case the trial court, like the Penny court, had the benefit of photographs and diagrams, and was able to observe the demeanor of the parties as they testified. Penny changed the law, and we are changing the law again today. I can only assume that we have implicitly overruled Penny and restored the Clayton line of cases as our standard. I am glad this court has come around so soon to my way of thinking. I can now retire with a sense that my opinions have, after all, sometimes had an effect. I only hope that in the future my dissents relating to the Bill of Rights and other constitutional issues will have an equal impact.