White v. Evansville Am. Legion Home Ass'n, 30852
Decision Date | 15 October 1965 |
Docket Number | No. 30852,30852 |
Citation | 247 Ind. 69,210 N.E.2d 845 |
Parties | Anna Mary WHITE, Appellant, v. EVANSVILLE AMERICAN LEGION HOME ASSOCIATION, Appellee. EVANSVILLE AMERICAN LEGION HOME ASSOCIATION, Cross-Appellant, v. Anna Mary WHITE, Cross-Appellee. |
Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
John H. Jennings, Harold M. Wilson, Jr., Evansville, for appellant and cross-appellee.
Bamberger, Foreman, Oswald & Hahn, Evansville, for appellee and cross-appellant.
This cause reaches us on petition to transfer from the Appellate Court pursuant to Rule 2-23, the Appellate Court's opinion appearing in 207 N.E.2d 820.
Appellant brought suit in the trial court for damages for personal injuries allegedly sustained as a result of appellee's negligence in furnishing appellant a defective chair in appellee's amusement hall.
The questions presented on this appeal grow out of the trial before a jury upon the second paragraph of appellant's complaint and the answers thereto filed, which resulted in a verdict and judgment for appellee-defendant.
Among the errors urged in the motion for new trial, the overruling of which is assigned as error on this appeal, are the giving of numerous instructions, two of which will have our particular attention on this appeal.
Appellant contends error was committed in the giving over objection of instruction No. 5 which was as follows:
In our recent opinion in the case of Miller v. Alvey (1965), Ind., 207 N.E.2d 633, we had before us an instruction on pure accident, the giving of which we held to be reversible error.
It has been argued we held in Miller v. Alvey, supra, that an instruction on 'pure accident' or 'unavoidable accident' was proper if there was evidence to support such an instruction. That construction is completely at variance with a careful reading of our opinion in which we pointed out that the expressions 'pure accident' or 'unavoidable accident' had no particular connotation in modern pleading of negligence cases, that such expressions were ambiguous and confusing to lay jurors, their use in instructions was undesirable and unwise, and we disapproved any statements in prior decisions which could be construed to the contrary. Consistent with Miller v. Alvey, we must hold it was error for the court to give instruction No. 5.
Appellant has further contended on this appeal the court erred in giving instruction No. 35, which stated as follows, viz.:
'You are instructed that Anna Mary White is the only plaintiff and Evansville American Legion Home Association is the only defendant in this case, and that there is no evidence in this case that there is any other party, plaintiff or defendant, interested in its outcome.'
As we further pointed out in Miller v. Alvey, supra, (at pp. 637, 638 of 207 N.E.2d):
'Conversely, evidence as to the failure of the defendant to carry insurance is likewise generally inadmissible on the ground of irrelevancy and as improperly tending to arouse sympathy for a defendant that he would personally have to pay the amount of any verdict the jury might return.
It follows therefore that it was error for the court to give instruction No. 35.
The appellant has further argued strenuously that the additional forty-three instructions tendered by appellee were so numerous and voluminous that appellant's attorney could not carefully study each of them with sufficient detail to detect all the errors therein and that it was physically impossible for the court to do so without unduly delaying and impeding the trial of the cause. The court gave in all thirty-nine instructions. We must concede that there comes a time in the tendering of instructions when their mere magnitude reaches a point beyond reason. Without fixing a limitation as to what is reasonable, we must point out that sheer numbers of tendered instructions will at times make it physically impossible for opposing attorneys or the court to perform their duty in the examination of such instructions. When that point is reached, the answer may be that this Court will not require, under such a situation, that specific objections be made to each of such tendered instructions because of the impossibility, and hold that the trial court may refuse to give such tendered instructions in its discretion when they become so numerous.
We refer to Emry v. Beaver (1922), 192 Ind. 471, 475, 137 N.E. 55, 56, wherein it was stated:
'The judgment is reversed, with instructions to sustain appellants' motion for a new trial.'
Appellant further claims that the jury was 'brain-washed' by the giving of a large number of mandatory instructions to return a verdict for the appellee. In this case the court told the jury eighteen different times, in substance, that the plaintiff could not recover or that their verdict should be for the defendant in certain events.
Mandatory instructions are not the best type of instructions to give to a jury. The jury can very easily conclude that the trial judge, for whom a jury has a great deal of respect, is urging them repeatedly to return a verdict for one of the parties. It has been said in Baker v. Thompson (1949), 337 Ill.App. 327, 335, 85 N.E.2d 924, 927:
'* * * When the court tells them repeatedly that 'the plaintiff cannot recover' or that 'they must find the defendant not guilty', the jury may believe that the court is of the opinion that the verdict should be for the defendant. No one coming into our courts for redress of wrongs done them should be required to bear the onus of this disadvantage.
'In view of the foregoing, it is our opinion that plaintiff-appellant is entitled to a new trial.
'Judgment reversed and remanded.' (Our emphasis.)
See also: Bean v. Gorby (1956), 80 Ariz. 25, 28, 292 P.2d 199, 201; Alexander v. Sullivan (1948), 334 Ill.App. 42, 45, 78 N.E.2d 333, 335; Vance v. Wells (1959), 129 Ind.App. 659, 666, 159 N.E.2d 586, 589.
It is our opinion that a court should reluctantly give a mandatory instruction and the tendering of such instructions by a party should be avoided. Where an instruction may be framed to state or cover the principle of law without the mandatory language therein to return a verdict for one or the other of the parties, it is not error for a trial court to refuse such a tendered mandatory instruction. We need not pass specifically upon these instructions in this case for the reason that this appeal is reversed upon the points stated previously. However, we make the foregoing observations for the guidance of the trial court and the litigants in the hope that these questions may to a large extent be eliminated by the use of discretion in the trial below.
It is not necessary to discuss the remaining contentions of error, as they are not likely to arise on a retrial.
Judgment reversed with instructions to sustain the motion for new trial.
I am unable to agree with the conclusion reached by the majority opinion herein. For that reason I dissent thereto.
The factual situation in the record in this case discloses that this is the fourth time that this case has been tried, the original action having been filed in the Vanderburgh Probate Court in March 1954. The cause was thereafter venued to the Warrick Circuit Court, trial was had therein before a jury resulting in a verdict in favor of the appellant in the...
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