Court Opinion

ID: 9594932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:34:04.845808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:43:13.689122
License: Public Domain

Christianson, Justice
(dissenting).
It seems to me that the instruction upon which the majority relies in granting a new trial could have been misleading to the jury if they took it to be a concise summing up of the issues they were to decide. Obviously it was incomplete and insufficient for that purpose. Whether it could reasonably have been interpreted by the jury to be such a summing up would depend upon the manner in which it was given and the emphasis placed upon it by the trial court. Neither of these matters, in my opinion, can be determined from the bare words upon the cold record before us.
The failure of defendant’s experienced counsel to object to this part of the trial court’s instructions at the conclusion of the charge indicates to me that it was not given in a manner which made it likely to mislead the jury. Defendant’s counsel were alert to note statements in the charge which they found objectionable, and they took exception to certain parts of the charge before the jury retired. They did not, however, call the court’s attention to any error in respect to the instruction in question until the motion for a new trial.
Errors in jury instructions as to controlling propositions of law may be called to the attention of the trial court for the first time in *459a notice of motion for a new trial, but inadvertent errors or omissions must be called to the court’s attention before the jury has retired. Steinbauer v. Stone, 85 Minn. 274, 88 N. W. 754; MacIllravie v. St. Barnabas Hospital, 231 Minn. 384, 43 N. W. (2d) 221. M. S. A. 547.03, subd. 2, was not intended to obviate the necessity of seasonably calling the court’s attention to inadvertent omissions or errors in the charge but merely to eliminate the need for taking an exception where the court has acted adversely after its attention has been directed to the alleged error. Storey v. Weinberg, 226 Minn. 48, 31 N. W. (2d) 912; Foster v. Bock, 229 Minn. 428, 39 N. W. (2d) 862; Chapman v. Dorsey, 235 Minn. 25, 49 N. W. (2d) 4. The rule of Steinbauer v. Stone, supra, still stands. MacIllravie v. St. Barnabas Hospital, supra. It is applicable to criminal as well as civil cases. State v. Kaufman, 172 Minn. 139, 214 N. W. 785; State v. Farmer, 179 Minn. 516, 229 N. W. 789; 5 Dunnell, Dig. (3 ed.) § 2479a.
If the trial court’s emphasis or manner of giving that part of the charge complained of was misleading to the jury, it is precisely the type of inadvertent error to which the foregoing rule is applicable because, had it been seasonably called to the court’s attention, it undoubtedly would have been corrected before the jury retired.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.
Mr. Justice Roger L. Dell, not having been a member of the court at the time of the argument and submission, took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.