Jones v. Cyprus Plateau Min. Corp., 960238

• Decision Date: 12 August 1997
• Docket Number: No. 960238,960238
• Parties: 323 Utah Adv. Rep. 15 Thayde L. JONES, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. CYPRUS PLATEAU MINING CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 357

944 P.2d 357

323 Utah Adv. Rep. 15

Thayde L. JONES, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. CYPRUS PLATEAU MINING CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation Defendant and Appellant.

No. 960238.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Aug. 12, 1997.

Dennis J. Conroy, Fred R. Silvester, Clark A. McClellan, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff and appellee.

Kenneth W. Yeates, Jeremy M. Hoffman, D. Matthew Moscon, Salt Lake City, for defendant and appellant.

DURHAM, Justice:

Defendant Cyprus Plateau Mining Corporation (Cyprus) appeals from a judgment in favor of plaintiff Thayde L. Jones. Cyprus also appeals from the district court's denial of its motion for a new trial. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

In 1990, a large rock face fell on Jones, injuring him while he worked in Cyprus's Star Point No. 2 Mine as an employee of J.S. Redpath Company (Redpath). Redpath was under contract to Cyprus to construct tunnels between coal seams at the mine. The area contained vertical ground displacement, known as "graben," that makes tunneling particularly difficult. Jones was operating a hand-held "jack leg" drill, attempting to create blasting holes in the rock face, which dislodged and injured him.

In 1992, Jones filed a complaint against Cyprus, alleging that it negligently breached its nondelegable duty to maintain mine safety and to warn him of the rock face's danger. At trial, the jury returned a verdict for Jones, apportioning 25% of the fault to Redpath and 75% to Cyprus. Cyprus moved for a new trial, alleging errors of law in the trial court's jury instructions and in the exclusion of references (both as direct evidence and during cross-examination of Jones's expert) to the Mine Safety and Health Administration's (MSHA) failure to issue Cyprus a citation in connection with Jones's accident.

JURY INSTRUCTIONS

Cyprus contends that the district court's jury instruction 41, regarding Cyprus's nondelegable duties, constituted error because it misstated Utah law and was vague and potentially confusing. The district court ruled that jury instruction 41 was proper because it was taken directly from the Model Utah Jury Instructions (MUJI). ¹ While we affirm this ruling, we explicitly distinguish Utah law from the MUJI. That is, the MUJI are merely advisory and do not necessarily represent correct statements of Utah law.

At trial, Cyprus objected that instruction 41 "misstates the law, the law in Utah and that it does not--well, that's the grounds for the exception." Because Cyprus's objection to instruction 41 was not adequately preserved for appeal due to the lack of specificity in its initial objection, we need not rule on whether the instruction was correct. Under Utah law, objections must be raised with sufficient specificity at trial for the trial judge to have a legal basis for altering or rejecting the instruction. Utah R. Civ. P. 51. Under rule 51, "a party must state distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds for objection." We have interpreted this to mean that an objection must be sufficiently precise so as to alert the trial court to all claimed errors and to give the judge an opportunity to make corrections to the instructions before the jury retires. See Nielsen v. Pioneer Valley Hosp., 830 P.2d 270, 271 (Utah 1992). This specificity requirement also serves to preserve an objection for review on appeal. Id. at 272. Because Cyprus neither requested an alternative instruction nor asked the court to reword its instruction, we find that Cyprus did not provide the trial court with a sufficient basis upon which to amend or correct its instructions. Cyprus failed to preserve its objection to instruction 41 adequately.

This case is complicated by the trial court's failure to hear exceptions to the jury instructions on the record before the jury retired for its deliberations. That "the object of the instructions is to enlighten the jury" is obvious. Id. at 275. Thus, Utah law requires that exceptions to jury instructions be taken before the jury retires for its deliberations to permit necessary changes and to give the trial judge a chance to correct mistakes. In fact, rule 51 states in part that objections to instructions are to be made "before the jury retires to consider its verdict." We take this opportunity to reemphasize the language in Nielsen, where we concluded:

Under rule 51, trial judges are to take objections to jury instructions before the jury is dismissed to begin deliberations. It is all too common today to have counsel recite objections to the court reporter after the jury has retired and the judge has left the bench. This is ill-advised because it defeats the rule's primary function.

Id. at 272.

We conclude that the trial court's procedural error was harmless because Cyprus's objection to instruction 41 was not sufficiently specific to have allowed the judge to correct the instruction regardless of when it was taken. Harmless errors are those that are sufficiently inconsequential so no reasonable likelihood exists that the error affected the outcome of the proceedings. See Harline v. Barker, 912 P.2d 433, 442 (Utah 1996). Given the inadequacy of Cyprus's objection, the fact that the trial court heard exceptions to the instructions after the jury retired for its deliberations does not undermine our confidence in the verdict.

EVIDENTIARY ISSUES

Cyprus contends that by excluding evidence showing that MSHA did not issue a citation in connection with Jones's accident, the trial court committed prejudicial error. It further argues that since Jones opened the door for this evidence during direct examination of his expert, Cyprus should have been allowed to cross-examine Jones's expert on MSHA's failure to cite Cyprus for Jones's accident. We disagree with both contentions. First, the hypothetical questions Jones put to his expert did not open...