Continental Cas. Co. v. McClure, 68--474
| Decision Date | 25 June 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 68--474,68--474 |
| Citation | 225 So.2d 590 |
| Parties | CONTINENTAL CASUALTY COMPANY, an Illinois corporation, Appellant, v. Jack R. McCLURE, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
John R. Bush, of Macfarlane, Ferguson, Allison & Kelly, Tampa, for appellant.
Richard O. Jacobs, of Woodworth & Jacobs, St. Petersburg, for appellee.
One Saturday, shortly after he was advised that his accidental dismemberment policy was in effect, Jack McClure went hunting. He had planned to go with his son, but the boy couldn't go, so McClure went alone. Late that afternoon, south of the hospital in Bardenton, McClure's shotgun discharged, severing his arm.
There are two versions of the story. McClure said that his memory of the accident was not clear, but that he remembered going across some railroad tracks. One nurse testified that he told her he was pulling out of a service station and saw out of the corner of his eye that the gun was falling toward him. Wherever it happened, McClure said that he grabbed the gun and it went off. He thought it was unloaded, but it wasn't. He remembered that the hospital was on U.S. 41 near the river and he speeded up and drove to the emergency room. Continental introduced evidence that McClure, separated from his wife and plagued by money worries, had told her that he would have some money soon, that he had this policy and that he was going to take a power saw and cut his arm off and collect on the policy.
Appellant complains that the plaintiff was allowed to introduce testimony of expert gunsmiths showing that the shotgun was defective and would discharge when struck by a sharp blow. In fact, one shell, stripped of pellets, was discharged in the courtroom to prove the point. Yet the defendant was not allowed to show to the jury a motion picture taken during several runs across the railroad tracks south of the hospital, with the shotgun inf the position McClure said it was in at the time of the accident. In the motion picture the gun did not move. This motion picture and the testimony of the engineer under whose direction it was taken were excluded by the trial judge because the circumstances were not shown to have been comparable. The movies were taken a year and a half after the accident. McClure's car had been sold and subsequently junked. Although there is an allegation that the car used for the tests was in all respects like McClure's, there are many variables such as tire pressure, condition of shock absorbers, and the like, which make the car in which the experiment was run a doubtful duplicate of McClure's, and we think the trial judge did not err in excluding the motion pictures.
The defendant's point was that the...
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Endresen v. Scheels Hardware and Sports Shop, Inc.
...The use of expert witnesses in products liability actions involving firearms is not uncommon. See, e.g., Continental Casualty Company v. McClure, 225 So.2d 590, 591 (Fla.Ct.App.1969); Lopez v. Heesen, 69 N.M. 206, 365 P.2d 448, 454 (1961); Annot., Products liability: firearms, ammunition, a......
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Jones v. White, 84-1113
...completed one operation, he could not have been negligent in another. The plaintiffs' reliance on Continental Casualty Co. v. McClure, 225 So.2d 590 (Fla. 2d DCA 1969) is misplaced because that case involved a motion picture of an experiment which purported to demonstrate that the accident ......
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White v. Seaboard Coast Line R. Co.
...little regarded by appellate counsel, and often lost when a court's language is excerpted into headnotes. See Continental Casualty Co. v. McClure, Fla.App.1969, 225 So.2d 590. Here the trial judge excluded tabulations of speeds at which motorists crossed the railroad tracks at which plainti......