Court Opinion

ID: 5454712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 20:02:27.17092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:32:35.321434
License: Public Domain

McLAUGHLIN, J.
I concur in the order affirming the judgment. There can be no doubt that section 625 of the Code of Civil Procedure as amended in 1905 makes it the absolute duty of the court to direct the jury “to find a special verdict in writing upon all or any of the issues,” and to instruct them, “if they render a general verdict, to find upon particular questions of fact,” whenever a written request for such direction or instruction is made. But this is far from saying that the court in the ease at bar was bound to direct the jury to fix upon some particular fact as the sole cause of the injury, or to find upon each ■ evidentiary fact addressed to any of the several issues or questions of fact raised by the pleadings. The general issue, which might have been answered by a general verdict, involved the liability of defendant and the extent of such liability. And the several issues or particular questions of fact involved in this main inquiry, concerning which the court was bound to direct the jury to find specially, must be gleaned from an analysis of the pleadings, and not from a survey of the numerous incidental questions arising from conflicting evidence touching some auxiliary fact. Eliminating questions of law which are not properly a matter of pleading, the issues or questions of fact raised by the pleadings are: (1) Was the platform an unsafe, unsuitable or dangerous place for plaintiff to work? (2) Should the defendant, in the exercise of ordinary care, have known that it was an unsafe and dangerous place for an employee to work? (3) Was the means of ascending or descending from said platform unsafe and dangerous, and should defendant, in the exercise of ordinary care, have known of its dangerous and unsafe character ? (4) Did the defendant, immediately after *285plaintiff went upon the platform, cause or suffer a dense volume of smoke to envelop the same, rendering the space in and about the plaintiff and the platform dark and impenetrable to sight ? (5) Did plaintiff, by reason of such darkness, in endeavoring to escape from impending danger of suffocation through the absence of guard-rails on said platform, fall and receive the injuries complained of? (6) Was the plaintiff damaged thereby in the sum of $10,000 or any other sum? (7) Were these injuries caused in whole or in part by the negligence of . plaintiff himself ? (8) Did the injuries suffered by plaintiff grow out of the risks assumed by plaintiff in his contract of employment? Wherever these questions include two or more propositions of fact they might properly be subdivided, and each question be made to include only one averment of fact disputed in the answer. Aside from such subdivision, however, the eight questions above enumerated include all of the questions of fact or issues which it was the duty of the court to consider in determining the propriety of directions or instructions requested.
Instead of submitting a request for a special verdict or finding on any one or all of these issues or particular questions of fact, the defendant submitted requests which it was no part of the duty of the court to grant. The requests numbered 1 and 2 are palpable attempts to compel the jury to fix upon one particular fact as the cause of the plaintiff’s injuries, and are confusing and misleading. The complaint clearly and specifically charges that the accident was due to a combination of 'both causes, and the court was not bound to split an issue which the parties had made single, and which could not be divided without danger of confusion leading to incongruous and untoward results. For instance, the jury might answer both of these questions in the negative and still find that the injuries were caused by defendant’s negligence in causing a smoke to envelop a platform, safe tinder ordinary conditions, but dangerous under the circumstances narrated in the complaint. The third request is based on an affirmative answer to the second, and as the latter was improper, the request was properly refused.- The fourth request is an attempt to compel the jury to find on an auxiliary evidentiary fact pertinent to one of the several issues or questions of fact, and was, for that reason, im*286proper. Every law must receive a reasonable construction, and it certainly was never intended by the framers of this law that either party could by simple request compel a jury, through a direction of the court, to answer each collateral fact going to make up a single issue, or give a finding touching each disputed item of evidence. Such a practice would lead to intolerable confusion, not only in the minds of jurors, but in the trial of causes. The request must come within, and be confined to, the issues or questions of fact presented by the pleadings, and cannot be made to include a separate finding on every minor detail of an issue, and on every one of a series of facts going to establish or controvert averments from which these issues arise.
I concur: Chipman, P. J.
On Rehearing.