Court Opinion

ID: 9773911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:03:20.366995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:59.025344
License: Public Domain

PARRISH, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
I concur. I write separately to emphasize that the sufficiency of a factual allegation in a jury instruction concerning conduct that constitutes negligence depends on the evidence adduced.
In this case the issue the “fifth disjunctive submission of negligence” in Instruction No. 8 addressed was whether Dr. MeQueary informed Ms. Lashmet that she might still have part of the toothpick in her foot. Unlike the facts in St. Joseph’s Hospital of Kirkwood v. Schierman, 829 S.W.2d 4 (Mo. App.1991), this issue involved only one theory upon which Ms. Lashmet could recover, whether an understandable warning of the danger had been communicated to Ms. Lash-met by Dr. MeQueary. She contended he gave no warning of the danger. He had no record or recollection of giving any specific warning, but contended his “practice” was to give a warning. Under these facts the instruction did not permit the jury “to roam freely through the evidence and choose any facts which suited it[s] fancy or its perception of logic.” Davis v. Jefferson Savings & Loan Ass’n, 820 S.W.2d 549, 556 (Mo.App. 1991).
Notwithstanding the foregoing, a warning is appropriate concerning the use of the particular language that is found acceptable in the instruction in this case. The holding in this case should not be taken to mean that the language “failure to adequately inform” *554of a “foreseeable risk” would be sufficient in instructions in other cases having different facts. The sufficiency of a jury instruction must be viewed in light of the evidence in the particular case in which it is given.