Court Opinion

ID: 9775711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:07:55.824973+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:30.606446
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. This was a bifurcated trial before the court. Appellant Russell Gene Jernigan (defendant below), testified that he had been drinking at the Party Tyme bar from 10:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., when he was asked to leave due to an altercation with another patron, who then followed him to his car and struck him several times through the car window. He said this individual, identified only as “John Doe,” then pointed a pistol at him and ordered him out of the car, presumably to fight. Jernigan made a frenzied attempt to escape and crashed into several parked vehicles in what the trial judge aptly characterized as a “Demolition Derby.” One of the parked vehicles belonged to appellee Hubert Lynn Cash (plaintiff below). Cash testified that his vehicle, a new Honda, had been purchased the day of the collision at a price of $13,500, that it cost $4,314.04 to repair the damage and the value of the car had been reduced to only $5,000 or $6,000. As with most bench trials, the dialogue between court and counsel at the close of the case was casual and the trial judge commented that the damage to the new Honda exceeded the amount of the repair bill — a fairly obvious fact in view of the testimony. Mr. Cash’s counsel then remarked that he intended to amend the complaint, which, in the absence of prejudice, a party can now do “at any time without leave of court.” ARCP Rule 15(a). The trial judge permitted the amendment over appellant’s general objection. The issue of prejudice was not argued then or now. The majority concludes that the trial judge “induced” or “persuaded” the appellee’s amendment to the complaint and by so doing abused his discretion. I respectfully disagree. The trial judge has broad discretion under Rule 15, and that discretion was not abused by the trial judge merely by observing what was obvious, that the damage to the Honda plainly exceeded the amount of the repair bill. Hogue v. Jennings, 252 Ark. 1009, 481 S.W.2d 752 (1972). I would affirm.