Court Opinion

ID: 9669408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:55:18.371493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:56.421274
License: Public Domain

Dethmers, J.
(concurring). I concur with Mr. Justice Black in affirmance for the several reasons stated in his opinion, except for one. I agree that a requested special question is improper when “premised upon a disputed fact” to which dispute it does not seek, but assumes, the answer. I do not agree that when the facts are undisputed or found by the jury to be established concerning the occurrence of certain actions or inactions, a special question as to whether these constituted negligence, contributory negligence, or a proximate cause is improper on the theory that it calls for a determination of law or mixed law and fact rather than of fact. What I wrote rather ineptly on that subject in McClelland v. Scholz, 366 Mich 423, I attempted to clarify, if possible, in Prentis v. Michel, 368 Mich 182, 188. For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Prentis, I am not now willing to go along with what Mr. Justice Black has written in the instant case to the effect that questions directed to the above mentioned subjects are questions of law or mixed fact and law rather than of *281fact only. Nevertheless, as indicated, I concur in affirmance.
Kelly, J., concurred with Dethmers, J.
O’Hara, J., did not sit.