Court Opinion

ID: 9521273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:01:51.845426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:11.321815
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: Shortly after midnight on July 3,1977, the plaintiff Tomm Twait was a passenger in a car driven by defendant Olson. Olson’s auto had been traveling on a gravel road known as Stein Road. A stop sign is located on Stein Road where that gravel road intersects a blacktop, preferential highway called Leland Spur Road. After completing his stop at the sign, Olson started his turn into the northbound lane of Leland Spur Road. At that precise moment, defendant Forrest Farley was motoring north on Leland Spur Road and approaching the Leland-Stein intersection from the south. There are no stop signs on Leland Spur Road. As defendant Olson was completing his turn into the northbound lane of Leland Spur Road, a collision occurred with the Farley auto that was proceeding north in that lane. Although both vehicles sustained serious damage, none of the occupants of either vehicle suffered a broken bone. The defendant Farley, the defendant Olson and Farley’s passenger, Cindy Catron each sustained minor lacerations. They were released from the hospital the following day. Tomm Twait, however, sustained brain injury which resulted in extensive and apparently permanent disability. Twait brought suit against Farley and Olson for his injuries. Twait claimed that Farley was negligent in traveling at an excessive speed on Leland Spur Road. Olson, Twait claimed, was negligent in pulling out onto Leland Spur Road in front of Farley’s oncoming car. The jury returned a verdict for Twait against defendant Farley in the sum of $550,000. The jury also found in favor of defendant Olson and against the plaintiff Twait. Judgment was entered upon the verdict against Farley. On appeal Farley’s complaints are several: (1) the court erred in failing to grant his motion for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence; (2) that the jury verdict was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence; (3) that the Conduct of the plaintiff’s attorney during the trial deprived him of a fair trial. Defendant Farley specifies several occasions of courtroom conduct as error. All were properly objected to by defendant Farley during trial. On several occasions, defendant Farley moved for a mistrial because of the prejudicial effect of the errors. All such motions were denied by the court. Defendant Farley moved for a mistrial at the close of trial and in his post trial motion. Again, his motions were denied. Recognizing that the trial court has great discretion in such matters, the majority affirms the trial court’s various evidentiary rulings and denial of defendant Farley’s motions for mistrial. I do not agree with the majority; the complained-of conduct by the plaintiff’s attorney and the erroneous evidentiary rulings combined to deprive the defendant Farley of a fair trial. Farley’s motion for a mistrial should have been granted. A review of the entire record suggests that plaintiff’s counsel orchestrated a trial full of error. The trial was calculated to prejudice the defendant Farley by the introduction of impermissible or marginally permissible trial tactics. Most of the errors standing alone would not warrant a new trial. Plaintiff’s counsel knew this as he was a seasoned trial attorney. He timed the errors so as not to enflame the trial judge, yet he presented to the jury impermissible matters with great subtlety and suggestion. He was sly; his strategy succeeded. Every motion for a mistrial was denied. The plaintiff won most evidentiary rulings, although in several instances the trial judge acknowledged that the complained-of evidence was only marginally admissible. While a trial judge may have difficulty realizing the cumulative effect of numerous trial errors, a court of review does not labor under the same handicap. As a court of review, we sit in an ideal position to view the totality of trial errors. At some point the cumulative effect of the trial errors and imperfections become reversible error. The instant case provides a perfect example of that principle. The trial repertoire of plaintiff’s counsel included subtle as well as obvious error. At one point he asked a highly prejudicial and improper question to defendant Farley that as a seasoned attorney he knew was wrong. He knew the objection would be sustained. It was. But plaintiff’s counsel succeeded in asking the question of whether Farley knew he had a duty to slow down as he approached the Leland-Stein intersection. This question suggested to the jurors that such a duty existed. Such duty does not exist. Farley was traveling on a preferential highway. His travel through the intersection was not impeded by stop or yield signs. If a motorist on such a throughway as Leland Spur Road had to decrease his speed so he could stop in time to avoid collisions with vehicles which ignore stop signs on intersecting roads, the purpose for such preferential highways would be thwarted. Farley had no duty to decrease his speed as he approached the intersection. Plaintiff’s counsel knew that. The effect of such a question was clearly prejudicial. Another trial error, manifestly prejudicial was the admission into evidence of a photograph of the Farley vehicle after it had been considerably altered. The majority finds no error in the admission because the changes were brought to the attention of the jury. The purpose of the photo was to demonstrate the condition of the Farley vehicle after the accident. First of all, two other photographic exhibits demonstrated the car’s condition after the accident. In the complained-of photo, not only was the engine removed as the majority notes, but the hood was removed from the car, the windshield was completely shattered out, the front tires were removed, and the interior of the car was removed. It presents a false and gross distortion of the accident. What appears in the photo is the car after it was salvaged of anything of value. It does not depict the car after the accident. The damage represented by the offending photo suggests an accident of far greater magnitude than actually occurred. This lends support, albeit false, to plaintiff’s theory that Farley was speeding. For this reason, its effect, subtle and insidious, was highly prejudicial to defendant Farley. Its admission into evidence was unnecessary; two other photos clearly depicted the car after the accident. Moreover, this false photo was nine times larger than the two accurate photos. The majority also claims that any error in its admission would not be prejudicial since the photo “was merely cumulative of the matters portrayed in other exhibits.” This just isn’t so. The photo was not cumulative of anything portrayed in other exhibits. The size of the photo and the distortion represented therein were prejudicial to the defendant Farley. To admit it into evidence was error. During the voir dire, one of the jurors mentioned that his wife had a workmen’s compensation case and he thought the plaintiff’s counsel had represented the respondent. Whereupon plaintiff’s attorney added, “Are you sure it was not Mr. Raccuglia, he sometimes represents insurance companies?” A motion for mistrial was then made by both defendants on the basis that the remark carried with it the innuendo that plaintiff’s counsel never represents insurance companies and that only lawyers who represent defendants represent insurance companies, and that the remark could serve only to enflame the jury. This was a deliberate and needless injection of the matter of insurance into the trial. The motion for a mistrial should have been granted. During closing argument, plaintiff’s counsel raised the matter of insurance, again needlessly. Plaintiff’s counsel in discussing damages stated: “* 0 ° and the boy is never going to have fringe benefits. He’ll never buy insurance. Who’s going to sell him liability insurance? He doesn’t drive a car anyway. Who’s going to sell him insurance?” Also during his final argument, plaintiff’s counsel stated, “We have a twenty year old or two, I think, on this jury. We have at least one. In a lifetime, I’m talking about factory work, Caterpillar, Libbey-OwensFord, there are better jobs and there are poorer jobs, perhaps but nowadays a young man can start for $10,000 and in a short time he can make 15 and $20,000 nowadays and I’ll tell you another thing; what were wages ten years ago and fifteen years ago? And they’re twice that now or close to it. So who’s to say what a young man will be earning who’s twenty years old today, ten years from now?” Immediately following the plaintiff’s argument, the defendant Farley moved for a mistrial, first on the basis that plaintiff’s attorney in his argument singled out a juror, secondly that he discussed inflation, and thirdly that he raised the insurance question by telling the jurors that if one cannot get liability insurance he cannot drive a car. The motion was made on the basis of the prejudicial effect of these errors, whether considered individually or cumulatively. The trial court denied the motion but said, “I think all three points fringed on being improper arguments. The real question is whether or not the prejudice flowed from them to such an extent to determine a mistrial.” The rule in Illinois is that the existence of insurance coverage is not to be presented to the jury in a personal injury case. (Horst v. Morand Bros. Beverage Co. (1968), 96 Ill. App. 2d 68.) However, where the subject of insurance is introduced through inadvertence by someone other than plaintiff’s counsel, the declaration of mistrial is not appropriate. Thus, where plaintiff’s counsel deliberately introduces the subject of insurance, not once but twice, reversible error has been committed and a mistrial should have been declared. The courts have clearly disapproved of counsel addressing jurors individually during argument holding such conduct to be improper. By this tactic the plaintiff’s attorney asked the jurors to place themselves in the place of the plaintiff Tomm Twait. This tactic is wrong because of the improper influence it has upon the jury. Plaintiff’s attorney in his final argument asked the jury to consider what wages were 10 to 15 years ago and that since that time they have doubled. He further asked the jury to speculate as to what wages would be 10 years from now. No other reading of the language employed could lead one to believe that he was not asking the jury to consider inflation. The appellate court has held that the introduction of evidence of inflation at the trial is improper as being speculative in nature. Certainly if the introduction of such evidence is improper, the mentioning of it during final argument is likewise improper for the same reason. While the intentional injection of insurance into this case would be grounds alone to declare a mistrial, the cumulative effect of the other errors clearly deprived defendant Farley of a fair trial. If these matters are not discouraged by the trial judge or by this court on appeal, then we have lost control of the trial. If such conduct is condoned, as the majority sees fit to do, then personal injury litigation becomes a free-for-all where anything goes. The error of injecting the matter of insurance needlessly into this case, not once but twice, is particularly grievous. This and the other errors taken cumulatively mandate that a new trial should be ordered.