Court Opinion

ID: 9577576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:36:12.661039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:50.379494
License: Public Domain

Neill, J.
(dissenting)—The application of the doctrine of strict liability to the facts of this case is warranted, at least as the applicability is qualified by the concurring opinion of Justice Rosellini. However, to decide this case on that theory violates our established rules of appellate review. National Indem. Co. v. Smith-Gandy, Inc., 50 Wn.2d 124, 309 P.2d 742 (1957); State v. McDonald, 74 Wn.2d 474, 445 P.2d 345 (1968).
Plaintiff seeks money redress for the death of an exemplary young woman whose life was horribly terminated in a tragic accident. A jury absolved the defendants from culpability. Irrespective of our sympathy, that jury verdict must stand unless error was committed at the trial. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict and judgment. Siegler v. Kuhlman, 3 Wn. App. 231, 473 P.2d 445 (1970). We granted review. 78 Wn.2d 991 (1970).
The only issue brought to this court by the appeal is the procedural effect of res ipsa loquitur. Before discussing that *462issue, I will address other portions of the majority and concurring opinions with which I am in disagreement.
The injection of the issue of the applicability and construction of RCW 46.44.070 is improper. The issue was not raised at trial, nor in the Court of Appeals. Following the granting of a petition for review, this court, sua sponte, requested counsel to submit supplemental briefs as to the statute. This is an appellate procedure to which I have previously expressed my dissent. Maynard Inv. Co. v. McCann, 77 Wn.2d 616, 625, 465 P.2d 657 (1970).2 My disagreement with such judicial usurpation of an adversary function is even stronger here, where the meaning ascribed to the statute in focus depends upon an interpretation which that statute has not heretofore received. The majority opinion assumes that the language of RCW 46.44.070 requiring the trailer “connection . . . [to] be of sufficient strength to hold the weight of the towed vehicle on any grade where operated” applies to situations where the trailer breaks away to the side of the towing vehicle. Whether or not that interpretation should be applied to the statute is a question that should await a case where the issue is timely and properly presented.
Further, RCW 46.44.070, even as read by the majority, cannot be applied here without first assuming as fact that the connection was not secure. In this case that assumption is an inappropriate trespass on the jury’s function. As the majority notes, the question of whether the connection came loose because improperly secured is raised by circumstantial evidence. In fact, much of the trial was directed to expert testimony as to whether the trailer connection first came loose or whether the breaking of a supporting spring caused the ultimate separation of the connection. Thus any answer to that question is properly the subject of the jury’s *463consideration from the evidence and reasonable inference from the circumstantial evidence. Unless we are prepared to hold that the statute makes the operator of a truck and tractor rig a guarantor of the security of the connection under all circumstances, we cannot state that the answer is a matter of certitude.
The jury was instructed on contributory negligence. No exception was taken nor has error been assigned to the instruction. Yet, the concurring opinion, sua sponte, questions the giving of the instruction. It has been my understanding that an instruction to which error is not assigned becomes the law of the case. E.g., Kindelspire v. Lawrence, 44 Wn.2d 722, 270 P.2d 477 (1954); Ralston v. Vessey, 43 Wn.2d 76, 260 P.2d 324 (1953). I think it beyond the proper scope of appellate review to “try the case” for the parties.
I turn to the sole and only assignment of error presented to us: that the jury should have been given one of two res ipsa loquitur instructions proposed by plaintiff. The applicability of that doctrine to the facts of this case is not contested and is not in issue here. The question is the procedural effect to be given that doctrine in the case at hand. I disagree with the treatment that the majority has given to this question and adhere to the lead opinion in Zukowsky v. Brown, 79 Wn.2d 586, 488 P.2d 269 (1971). First, the majority opinion chooses to ignore, rather than grapple with, the serious' and difficult problems associated with the question of the procedural effect to be given res ipsa loquitur. See Zukowsky v. Brown, supra, and authorities therein cited. Also see Siegler v. Kuhlman, 3 Wn. App. 231, 473 P.2d 445 (1970). In consequence, the majority decision, as to this point, contributes nothing to the body of law, and yields only a sui generis result. Having refused to meet the problem, the majority cannot be read as either enhancing, diminishing, or altering answers arrived at in cases where the issue has been met.3
*464In addition, plaintiff’s proposed instructions on res ipsa were defective. Each proposed instruction contains language criticized in Clark v. Icicle Irrigation Dist., 72 Wn.2d 201, 203, 432 P.2d 541 (1967):
We particularly disagree with the statement that “the happening of the accident alone affords reasonable evidence . . . that the accident arose from the want of reasonable care.” We have been at some pains to make it clear that the happening does not afford “reasonable evidence”; that it does no more than permit the jury to infer, •though it is not required to so infer, that the defendant or its agents were at some point negligent.
See recent discussion in Pederson v. Dumouchel, [72 Wn.2d 73], 431 P.2d 973 (1967).
Plaintiff’s first assignment of error is the trial court’s failure to give a requested instruction stating:
You are instructed that when a thing which causes an injury to another is shown to be under the management and control of the person charged with negligence in operation or maintenance of such thing, or in the failure to keep it in a reasonably safe condition, and if it is shown that an accident happened, which in the ordinary course of things, does not happen if those in charge of the management and maintenance of thing exercised reasonable care, then the happening of the accident alone affords reasonable evidence in the absence of explanation by the person charged with negligence that the accident arose from want of reasonable care on the part of such persons.
(Italics mine.)
Plaintiff’s second, and only other, assignment of error is the failure to give an instruction stating:
You are instructed that when an object which causes an injury to another is shown to be under the management and control of a person charged with negligence in the operation of such thing, or in the failure to keep it in a reasonably safe condition and if it is shown that the incident happened which in the ordinary course of things does not happen, if those in charge of this management and control exercise reasonable care, then the happening of said occurrence affords reasonable evidence, in the *465absence of an explanation by the person charged with negligence, that the occurrence arose from the want of reasonable care on the part of such person.
(Italics mine.)
Thus plaintiff’s proposed res ipsa instructions were defective by including the “affords reasonable evidence” language criticized in Clark 4 A trial court need not give an erroneous instruction. State v. Wilson, 26 Wn.2d 468, 174 P.2d 553 (1946).
I would affirm the trial court and the Court of Appeals.
Stafford, J., concurs with Neill, J.
Petition for rehearing denied January 4, 1973.

Both the majority and dissenting opinions in Maynard Inv. Co. v. McCann, 77 Wn.2d 616, 625, 465 P.2d 657 (1970), recognize several exceptions to the general rule that appellate courts will not consider a theory or issue which was not presented by the litigants. See generally 5 Am. Jur. 2d Appeal and Error §§ 545-552. However, none of these exceptions justify the injection of these issues by this court in this case.

In this respect, the Court of Appeals commendably met and discussed the problem. Siegler v. Kuhlman, 3 Wn. App. 231, 240-44, 473 P.2d 445 (1970).

This distinction between evidence and inference is supported by eminent writers in the field. E.g., Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940) § 1(b), “Argument and Evidence, distinguished,” and § 30.