Court Opinion

ID: 9733849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:18:52.173799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:28:35.618828
License: Public Domain

HEFFERNAN, CHIEF JUSTICE
(dissenting). I quite agree with the majority's conclusion that the trial court erred when it instructed the jury on the provisions of sec. 346.34(l)(b), Stats. — a statute that clearly is inapplicable under the circumstances. I part company with the majority, however, when it denominates this error as "harmless." Sec. 805.18(1) and (2) states the statutory test for harmless error. The essence of the statute is that an error shall be disregarded if it does not "affect the substantial rights of [a] party."
In the instant case, however, the instructions, as the majority admits, "created a right of way in the absence *191of any statutory basis for it and erroneously created a shifting right of way." (Majority opinion at page 186.)
This erroneous concept embodied in the trial court instructions compounded the erroneous instruction, which left the jury with the impression that the defendant had a positive duty to signal for a distance of one hundred feet — even though to do so was impossible under the circumstances. The failure to do that which in reason could not be done was — or so the jury was instructed— negligence per se. Under these faulty instructions, the jury was compelled to find the defendant negligent for that reason alone. How this erroneous instruction failed to affect the "substantial rights" of the defendant has not been explained to my satisfaction. The mere fact that in the lengthy instructions the overwhelming majority were correct does not rectify the egregious error that was focused on the particular item of purported negligence— the failure to signal for one hundred feet.
It was error in this case to attempt to apply the portion of the statute the requirements of which, under the circumstances, could not be followed by a motorist. It was error to define, as did the judge in this case, the violation of sec. 343.34(1)(b), Stats., as negligence per se. It was error, as the majority has determined, to in any way intimate that Betchkal, by the defendant's negligence, became the transferee or the beneficiary of whatever right-of-way Willis had.
While I do not consider the gender references in the instructions to be prejudicial error, I comment on them because the failure to state properly the gender of the parties might well lead to jury confusion. This court has emphasized that jury instructions are to reflect the facts of the particular case. Nevertheless, the trial judge told the jury that the instructions were written using masculine pronouns and that the pronouns would not be changed to the feminine when referring to Bernita Willis. The judge then instructed the jury that "whenever he, his or him is *192used in these instructions, it may refer either to the plaintiff, Ryan Betchkal, or the defendant, Bernita Willis, whichever is appropriate for the particular instruction." Compounding the gender confusion, the trial judge then proceeded to violate his own instructions. Sometimes "he" in the instructions refers only to the male plaintiff or only to the female defendant or to both parties; sometimes "he or she" is used; sometimes "they" or "one" refer to one party and sometimes to both parties; and other times "she" and "her" refer to the female defendant.
The instructions were replete with significant and prejudicial errors warranting, as the court of appeals found, a new trial.
I am authorized to state that JUSTICES ABRAHAM-SON and STEINMETZ join in this dissent.