Court Opinion

ID: 9584444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:48:20.293538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:51.642730
License: Public Domain

*169LATIMER, Justice.
I concur.
In my opinion, the giving of instruction No. 7 was erroneous and prejudicial and requires a reversal of the judgment. A reading through the record suggests why this instruction was used in this litigation.
In the first trial the court gave the following portion of an instruction to the jury:
“You are instructed that where an employee has two ways of performing an act in the course of his employment, and in the exercise of reasonable care would have perceived that the one way was safe, and the other dangerous, he owes a positive duty to ths employer to pursue the safe method, and any departure from the path of safety will prevent his recovery.”
(The phrase crossed out was in the original instruction but was not read to the jury.)
When the instruction was subsequently requested by the defendant, the first paragraph was tailored to eliminate the employer-employee relationship and it appeared in the second trial in the following form:
“You are instructed that where one may perform a duty in either of two ways, one safe and the other dangerous, and with full knowledge that one method of performing the duty is safe and the other dangerous, and with full opportunity to make a choice as to which method he shall adopt, voluntarily chooses the dangerous method, such conduct on his part constitutes negligence.”
The difficulty with the tailoring is that the concept cannot be fitted to the facts of this case.
Assuming that an employee must select a safe method of doing his work, I do not see how that concept has any application to the facts of this case. Plaintiff was not an employee of the defendant and the method he selected to do his work is no concern of it so long as he used due care for his own safety in the particular accident. In this instance, plaintiff had not selected a dangerous method, rather he was employing a well-recognized mode of assist*170ing passengers on and off the cars and certainly one which could not be characterized as being hazardous. Even if we grant that the court intended to deal with the concept of an employee choosing an unsafe place to work, the instruction is still erroneous for the reason that the place was not unsafe until made so by the acts of the defendant and even then the danger was not so obvious that all reasonable persons would conclude it was dangerous.
I am unable to perceive any reason why the usual instructions on negligence cases would not have sufficed in this cause. After all, the issue of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff was simply whether by remaining at his post he acted with due care and circumspection and this issue could have been couched in simple language. The test to determine plaintiff’s conduct is not whether there was safer places which could have been selected by him, but rather whether or not under the facts and circumstances known to him he acted as a reasonably prudent person.
I conclude the instruction was prejudicial for the following reasons:
If we review the incidents immediately prior to the accident, the place selected by the plaintiff appeared safe and if it became either hazardous or dangerous this condition was brought about by the driver of the truck. Plaintiff was apprised of the fact that the truck was to be driven past the place where he was standing; and, while this information amounted to warning the plaintiff to be observant of the truck’s movements, in view of other facts and circumstances, it hardly suggested that by standing fast he was remaining in a place where injury would likely occur. Subsequent events established that by not moving he was struck by the trailer, but he is only chargeable with ordinary care and whether he exercised that degree of care is not tested by hindsight.
*171The questioned instruction seems to suggest that the jury could find the plaintiff was negligent because he was standing in a dangerous and perilous place; he knew the dangers that existed; and with full knowledge of the hazards he voluntarily chose to remain. The facts do not justify the submission of such a theory. As previously suggested, if the place was dangerous it was made so by the driving of defendant’s agent and when that condition was created plaintiff had little, if any, opportunity to select a more secure place. Moreover, that theory suggests to the jury a distorted version of the facts. It portrays the plaintiff as a person with full knowledge of the situation who has been given a choice of selecting between an island of safety and a position of grave danger. The jurors are then told that if they believe he voluntarily chose the latter he cannot recover. I can not find in the record a voluntary choice of a known danger.
PRATT, C. J., dissents.