Court Opinion

ID: 9826400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:53:49.961833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:02.931739
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice McIvER.
3 *3244 *322I concur in the result; but I cannot concur in what is said as to appellant’s fifth exception; and, on the contrary, think that exception should also have been sustained. It seems to me that in that portion of the charge -which is made the 'basis of this exception, the 'Circuit Judge .has erred in defining the law of contributory negligence. The rule upon this subject is thus laid down in that very valuable work, Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law, 7th vol. of the 2d edition: “Contributory negligence is a want of ordinary care upon the part of a person injured by the negligence of another combining and concurring with that negligence, and contributing to the injury as a proximate cause thereof,. without which the injury would not have occurred.” This definition of contributory negligence has been quoted with approval, in at least two of our recent cases—Cooper v. Railway Company, 56 S. C., 91, and Bowen v. Southern Railway Company, 58 S. C., 222. From this, as well as from what is said in Farley v. Baskett and Veneer Co., 51 S. C., at page 237, and in Disher v. Railroad Company, 55 S. C., at page 192-3, it is apparent that the defense of contributory negligence can only arise when the injury complained of is the compound result of the negligence of both plaintiff and defendant, both contributing to such result by their combined and concurrent action as the proximate cause of the injury. Hence, as is said by the late Justice McGowan, in Sims v. Railway Company, 26 S. C., at page 497, “until a prima facie case of negligence is made out against the defendant, there can be no such question as that of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff.” And as is said by Mr. Justice Jones, in Cooper v. Railway Company, supra, at page 95, immediately after making the above quotation from the Ency. of Law: “It is thus seen that contributory negligence by a plaintiff'can never exist except when the injury has resulted *323from the negligence of defendant as a concurring proximate cause.” Indeed, this view is necessarily involved in the meaning of the word “contributory,” for it necessarily implies that there is some other negligence to which it contributes in bringing about the injury complained of — both being a proximate cause and the two combined and concurring together constitute the proximate cause of the injury. When, therefore, the Circuit Judge charged the jury as set forth in this exception, he violated the rule above stated, based upon the authorities above cited; for when he instructed the jury that “before the jury can be justified in refusing to find for the' plaintiff on the ground of contributory negligence, they must be satisfied by the preponderance of the evidence that the injury complained of was primarily due to that negligence; that the plaintiff’s negligence was the direct proximate cause of the injury; that but for the negligence of the plaintiff the injury would not have occurred; when that is the case, the jury must find for the defendant” — more especially when he added these words: “It is not sufficient for the defendant to show that the plaintiff may, to some extent, have been careless or negligent; the jury must be satisfied, before they can find for the defendant on such plea as that, that the plaintiff’s negligence was the direct and proximate cause of the injury” (the italics mine). He completely ignored and eliminated the word “contributory,” and practically presented the issue to the jury as if the sole question was whether the injury was caused by the plaintiff’s own negligence or that of the defendant ; whereas, the issue presented by a plea of contributory negligence is whether both parties were negligent, and whether the negligence of each contributed as a proximate cause to the injury complained of. This being the issue presented by the pleadings, it was the duty of the Circuit Judge to instruct the jury as to the law in reference, ho such issue without any specific request to that effect, and if he undertook to do so and laid down the law incorrectly, as I think he did, then that constitutes reversible error. If he *324‘had inadvertently or for any other reason omitted to charge the jury as to the law of contributory negligence, then, possibly, a request would have been necessary for the purpose of calling the attention of the Circuit Judge to such omission. But here he undertook to charge the jury as to the law of contributory negligence, and the complaint is that he erred in the instructions which he gave to the jury as to the law of contributory negligence. It is to be observed that the very same error complained of here is pointed out in the notes to the passage above quoted from the Ency. of Law, and the annotator speaks of it as a common error, which he says “has been well corrected in a West Virginia case, where the true meaning of contributory negligence is accurately stated,” and he proceeds to quote from that case (Washington v. Baltimore &c. R. Co., 17 W. Va., 190, 10 Am. & Eng. R. Cas., 755,) as follows: “Properly speaking, contributory negligence, as the very words import, arises when the plaintiff as well as the defendant has done some act negligently, or has omitted through negligence to do some act which it was their respective duty to do, and the combined negligence of the two parties has ■directly produced the injury.”
While, therefore, I concur with Mr. Justice Gary in the view which he takes of the other questions in the case, I cannot agree with him in the view which he takes of the fifth exception.