Tucker Freight Lines v. Gross

• Decision Date: 17 April 1941
• Docket Number: 16439.
• Citation: 33 N.E.2d 353,109 Ind.App. 454
• Parties: TUCKER FREIGHT LINES, Inc., et al. v. GROSS.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

33 N.E.2d 353

109 Ind.App. 454

TUCKER FREIGHT LINES, Inc., et al. v. GROSS.

No. 16439.

Appellate Court of Indiana, in Banc.

April 17, 1941

Seebirt Oare & Deahl, Shively & Shively, and Robert L. Oare all of South Bend, for appellants.

Aaron H. Huguenard, McInerny & Huguenard, and Shepherd J Crumpacker, all of South Bend, for appellee.

FLANAGAN Judge.

The complaint in this case alleges that while plaintiff (appellee here) was riding at night in an automobile driven by one John Chalik (Challek) it approached from the rear a truck and semi-trailer owned by the Tucker Freight Lines, Inc., which its agent and employee, Delbert Smith, had parked on the traveled portion of the highway without causing to be displayed at a distance of approximately 300 feet to the rear thereof a brilliant burning danger or caution signal as required by law; that a collision resulted, whereby plaintiff was injured.

To this complaint the defendants filed an answer of general denial. Upon the issues so joined the cause was submitted for trial to a jury which returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $10,000.

Twenty-four interrogatories were submitted to and answered by the jury.

Defendants moved for judgment in their favor on the answers to the interrogatories notwithstanding the general verdict assigning as the reason that "said answers are in irreconcilable conflict with the general verdict for the plaintiff." This motion was overruled and the correctness of this ruling is the only question presented for review.

Two contentions are advanced. First, that the record discloses that any contributory negligence on the part of the driver of the car in which appellee was riding is imputed to appellee because of the fact that appellee owned the car in which they were riding, and that the answers to the interrogatories show, in irreconcilable conflict with the general verdict, that the driver of the car was guilty of contributory negligence. Second, that the answers to the interrogatories show, in irreconcilable conflict with the general verdict, that the negligence of the driver of appellee's car, rather than any negligence of appellant, was the proximate cause of appellee's injuries.

We first direct our attention to interrogatories 21 and 22. Appellee contends that these interrogatories call for conclusions and should be disregarded. They read as follows:

"21. Could the driver of the automobile, John Challek, have seen the truck in time to have stopped the automobile, had he looked with reasonable care?

"22. Could the driver of the automobile, John Challek, have seen the truck in time to have turned the automobile to the left and avoided the collision had he looked with reasonable care?"

Obtaining from the jury their finding on certain involved facts is an important part of the system of checks and balances which permeates the field of procedural law. In reaching a general verdict the jury takes the law from the instructions of the court and applies that law to the facts as it finds them to be in formulating its final conclusion. But the jury may misunderstand the court's instructions or erroneously apply the law so given it. As a check on these entirely human errors the court may submit interrogatories to the jury to discover what facts the jury did find from the evidence, so that it may apply the law to the facts so found. Obviously this purpose would be defeated if the questions so propounded call not for facts alone but conclusions based on facts with the law applied thereto.

It is therefore improper to submit interrogatories calling for such conclusions, and answers so elicited must be disregarded. Burns' Indiana Statutes 1933, Section 2-2022, Section 355, Baldwin's Indiana Statute 1934; Citizens' Telephone Company v. Prickett, 1919, 189 Ind. 141-150, 125 N.E. 193; Clawson v. Black, 1923, 80 Ind.App. 111-113, 138 N.E. 362.

The difficulty is encountered in the attempt to differentiate between interrogatories calling for facts and those calling for conclusions of mixed fact and law.

In the case of Dodge Manufacturing Company v. Kronewitter, 1914, 57 Ind.App. 190, 104 N.E. 99, 102, the court said:

"The distinction between 'ultimate facts' and 'mere conclusions' is not always clear * * *.

"If in answering an interrogatory the jury is required not only to consider the facts, but also is required to apply some legal principle to such facts, or to measure them by some standard fixed by law in order to reach the conclusion required by the answer, then the answer which results must be a legal conclusion and not an ultimate fact."

In Clawson v. Black, supra [80 Ind.App. 111, 138 N.E. 363], the court said: "An ultimate fact which may be found by the jury is one which can reasonably be inferred from the facts found, without applying to the facts any legal principle, or measuring them by any legal standard."

In other words, if the questionable word or phrase in the interrogatory calls upon the jury to use only the "common use" or "dictionary" definition to ascertain its meaning, the interrogatory asks for a finding of fact. However, if the questionable word or phrase requires from the court an instruction as to its legal meaning, the interrogatory asks for a conclusion of mixed law and fact.

The questionable phrase in each of the two questions numbered 21 and 22 in this case is "reasonable care." The law fixes the standard by which "reasonable care" must be determined. On this point the court in the case of Clawson v. Black, supra, said: "To answer interrogatory No. 5, the jury was required to state whether or not appellee was at the time in the exercise of reasonable and ordinary care. The law fixes the standard by which 'reasonable care' or 'ordinary care' must be determined. Jurors are not presumed to know this standard, and the court has no means of knowing whether in reaching the conclusion indicated by the answer that the jury applied the correct legal standard or not. We hold that an answer to the interrogatory in question necessarily involves a question of law, and that the jury's answer is a conclusion which must be disregarded in the consideration of the motion for judgment on the answers to interrogatories notwithstanding the general verdict."

In the case of Terre Haute, etc., Traction Co. v. Hunter, 1916, 62 Ind.App. 399, 111 N.E. 344, 350, the following interrogatory was involved: "Could the motorman, in the exercise of ordinary care, have stopped his car and prevented striking plaintiff after he discovered plaintiff on said bridge?" The court held that it called for a conclusion and was therefore improper.

In the case of Dodge Manufacturing Company v. Kronewitter, supra the jury by answer to an interrogatory there numbered 162 found that "if appellee had exercised the care for his own safety reasonably to be expected from one of his age and experience placed in the same or similar circumstances, he could have discovered while in appellant's employ before the injury that, when the valve in the northwest corner of the room was shut, the air remaining in the pipe had force enough to injure him." The court said: "By its answer to interrogatory 162 the jury did not find that appellee might have discovered the dangerous condition by the exercise of 'due care,' or by the exercise of 'ordinary care.' If the question had been so framed as to call for such an answer, the resulting answer would be a conclusion of law. The law fixes a standard by which 'due care' or 'ordinary care' must be measured and determined. The jurors are not presumed to know this standard;...