Court Opinion

ID: 9683637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:34:00.620156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:49.328234
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
As the majority opinion points out, it is important that the courts and the bar comply with the MAI Notes on Use. However, it seems to me that there was in effect full compliance in this case. I have reference to the following:
Instruction No. 3 in this case provided as follows:
“Your verdict must be for defendant if you believe that plaintiff was not injured as a result of the occurrence on November 9, 1966.”
Instruction No. 4 in this case provided as follows:
“If you find the issues in favor of plaintiff, then you must award plaintiff such sum as you believe will fairly and justly compensate the plaintiff for any damages you believe he sustained and is reasonably certain to sustain in the future as a direct result of the occurrence mentioned in the evidence.”
It will be noted that instruction No. 4 refers to “the occurrence”. Use of the definite article “the” limits “occurrence” to a specific, particular, single occurrence. It does not permit several occurrences or a combination thereof.
Between the two therefore, the jury was left with no uncertainty or conflict. The jury approaches instruction No. 4 knowing from reading instruction No. 3 that unless plaintiff was injured in the November 9, 1966 accident they cannot find for plaintiff. Then in reading No. 4 the jury sees that it refers to a single occurrence — “the occurrence”. So they could not believe they could allow any damages for the August or December 1965 occurrences, because before the jury can award any damages they must find plaintiff was injured in the November 9, 1966 occurrence (see *850instruction No. 3) and No. 4 requires them to focus on a single occurrence. Therefore, since under No. 3 plaintiff has to be hurt in the November 9, 1966 occurrence to recover, No. 4 necessarily is restricted to that occurrence and so was the jury.
In the cases cited by the majority opinion on the proposition that failure to modify MAI 4.01 by inserting the words “of November 9, 1966” for the words “mentioned in evidence” was reversible error, none involves a situation where there was in addition to MAI 4.01 another instruction given on the subject such as No. 3 in the present case. The cited cases do not consider the effect of such a given instruction. Rather, they focused on what a jury might consider from use of MAI 4.01 alone, without modification, in cases where there were several occurrences. For example, in Jurgeson v. Romine, 442 S.W.2d 176, 178 (Mo.App.1969), a case involving damage to growing crops from flooding where there was evidence that not all the flooding was due to defendant’s act of obstructing the creek and the plaintiff used MAI 4.01 without modification, the court said:
“. . . Does the word ‘occurrence’ refer to ‘obstructing the creek’ or to the ‘flooding’? To which would a jury apply the word? We of course can’t tell. Thus, the instruction is erroneous . . .’’It does not seem to me that the same can be said of the words “the occurrence” in instruction No. 4 in the present case when read in connection with instruction No. 3. In deciding whether a jury would apply the words “the occurrence” to the August 1965 accident, the December 1965 accident, or the November 1966 accident, it seems to me that we quite positively can say that it was to the latter and to the latter alone.
It is true that MAI 4.01 was not modified by plaintiff. Instead the modification occurred in effect by defendant’s instruction No. 3, but it does not seem to me that this procedure is a violation of the Notes on Use under MAI 4.01. So long as the instructions properly limit the jury to the occurrence produced by defendant it should make no difference whether the modification is made by one side or the other.