Marshall v. Ogden Union Ry. & Depot Co.
Marshall v. Ogden Union Ry. & Depot Co.
Opinion of the Court
In March, 1948, John D. Marshall, appellant herein, filed suit against the Ogden Union Railway Co., respondent herein, for personal injuries sustained while working as a chair car porter for the Southern Pacific Railroad Co. in respondent’s passenger depot in Ogden, Utah. At the trial of the case in July, 1948, the jury returned a verdict in Marshall’s favor of $8,000.00 general damages and $500.00 special damages. This verdict was set aside by the judge and a new trial granted. On the second trial the jury returned a verdict of no cause for action. From this verdict and judgment thereon and from the order of the judge granting a new trial in the first case this appeal is brought.
On the morning of the accident, June 19, 1947, the train on which appellant worked was standing on track No. 8 facing north in respondent’s depot. The tracks run in a general northerly-southerly direction. At about 8:30 that
From the evidence most favorable to respondent the jury could have reasonably found that as the driver of the jitney and truck approached Marshall he stopped and requested Marshall to move over to the east side of the platform but that Marshall failed to do so, indicating that there was plenty of room for him to pass; that as he proceeded to pass he was watching Marshall and turned his truck out and the corner of his truck struck the standing truck causing his truck to swing against Marshall and the car resulting in the injuries complained of.
Appellant complains first of the court’s granting a new trial and argues that it abused its discretion in so doing.
At the first trial appellant in testifying as to the extent of his injuries said that he had been out of work for about
The granting or denying of a motion for a new trial is within the sound discretion of the trial court. When a trial court grants a new trial we will not disturb its action unless it is manifestly apparent that the court has abused its discretion. Abuse of discretion does not occur when there is a reasonable basis for the court’s action and there is a probability that a different result will ensue. See Moser v. Z. C. M. I. 114 Utah, 58; 197 P. 2d 136; King v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 117 Utah, 40; 212 P. 2d 692. Here it appeared without contradiction that the plaintiff in the action sought to magnify the injuries sustained by making it appear to the jury that almost nine months after the accident he was so seriously injured that he was confined in a hospital for two weeks when the fact was that he had reported to the hospital in San Francisco, Calif., for about six days for treatments. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the jury was influenced by such testimony in the amount of the verdict it rendered, and under such circumstances this court is unable to say that the court abused its discretion in granting the new trial. Counsel for appellant cites numerous cases where the superior courts of
Appellant further complains of the giving of Instruction No. 7 and assigns it as prejudicial error. Appellant does not claim this instruction is an incorrect statement of an abstract principal of law but asserts that its giving to the jury was not warranted by the evidence. The instruction reads:
“You are instructed that where one may perform a duty in either of two ways, one safe and the other dangerous, and with full knowledge that one method of performing the duty is safe and the other dangerous and with full opportunity to make a choice as to which method he shall adopt, voluntarily chooses the dangerous method, such conduct on his part constitutes negligence.
“Therefore, if you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that plaintiff, John D. Marshall, was warned of the approach of the jitney tractor and that he could have stepped onto the chair car or could have stepped over to the east with equal ease or could have stepped to any other position which was safe, but voluntarily chose to remain in a dangerous position knowing the same to be dangerous, then he is guilty of negligence, and if such negligence proximately contributed to cause the accident and any injuries he claims to have suffered he cannot recover and you must return a verdict for the defendant ‘no cause of action.’ ”
Appellant contends that the evidence does not justify the giving of an instruction of the safe or dangerous way of performing a duty since appellant was not in a dangerous position when the accident occurred. He argues that because there was a distance of nine feet, between the chair car and the umbrella posts where the truck was standing and since this truck was only about three feet wide there
We are inclined to agree with appellant’s contention. There was nothing in the evidence from which the only reasonable conclusion that could be drawn was that there was a safe and dangerous way of performing a duty and the voluntary choosing of the dangerous way was negligence as a matter of law. The instruction as given contains this erroneous concept. The jury should have been instructed to determine whether under all the facts and circumstances disclosed to them by the evidence the appellant had or had not acted as a reasonably prudent person. It might well be that a jury could have reasonably believed that the situation in which appellant was at the time of the accident had potentialities of being dangerous, but that a reasonably prudent person under similar circumstances would have acted as appellant did. Under the court’s instruction the jury was precluded from so finding. It follows that the giving of this instruction was prejudicial error.
Appellant further contends that the court erred in refusing to give an instruction on the last clear chance.
Appellant testified that on the morning of the accident he was not aware of the approach of the jitney and truck until it started to pass him and then just as it was going by him he was hit. The driver of the truck testified, and this was not controverted, that he saw appellant Standing by his car and that as he approached him
Reversed. Costs to appellant.
Concurring Opinion
I concur.
In my opinion, the giving of instruction No. 7 was erroneous and prejudicial and requires a reversal of the judgment. A reading through the record suggests why this instruction was used in this litigation.
In the first trial the court gave the following portion of an instruction to the jury:
“You are instructed that where an employee has two ways of performing an act in the course of his employment, and in the exercise of reasonable care would have perceived that the one way was safe, and the other dangerous, he owes a positive duty to ths employer to pursue the safe method, and any departure from the path of safety will prevent his recovery.”
(The phrase crossed out was in the original instruction but was not read to the jury.)
When the instruction was subsequently requested by the defendant, the first paragraph was tailored to eliminate the employer-employee relationship and it appeared in the second trial in the following form:
“You are instructed that where one may perform a duty in either of two ways, one safe and the other dangerous, and with full knowledge that one method of performing the duty is safe and the other dangerous, and with full opportunity to make a choice as to which method he shall adopt, voluntarily chooses the dangerous method, such conduct on his part constitutes negligence.”
The difficulty with the tailoring is that the concept cannot be fitted to the facts of this case.
Assuming that an employee must select a safe method of doing his work, I do not see how that concept has any application to the facts of this case. Plaintiff was not an employee of the defendant and the method he selected to do his work is no concern of it so long as he used due care for his own safety in the particular accident. In this instance, plaintiff had not selected a dangerous method, rather he was employing a well-recognized mode of assist
I am unable to perceive any reason why the usual instructions on negligence cases would not have sufficed in this cause. After all, the issue of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff was simply whether by remaining at his post he acted with due care and circumspection and this issue could have been couched in simple language. The test to determine plaintiff’s conduct is not whether there was safer places which could have been selected by him, but rather whether or not under the facts and circumstances known to him he acted as a reasonably prudent person.
I conclude the instruction was prejudicial for the following reasons:
If we review the incidents immediately prior to the accident, the place selected by the plaintiff appeared safe and if it became either hazardous or dangerous this condition was brought about by the driver of the truck. Plaintiff was apprised of the fact that the truck was to be driven past the place where he was standing; and, while this information amounted to warning the plaintiff to be observant of the truck’s movements, in view of other facts and circumstances, it hardly suggested that by standing fast he was remaining in a place where injury would likely occur. Subsequent events established that by not moving he was struck by the trailer, but he is only chargeable with ordinary care and whether he exercised that degree of care is not tested by hindsight.
Concurring Opinion
I concur. My main concern, also, is with the first paragraph of Instruction #7 reading: “You are instructed that where one may perform a duty in either of two ways, one safe and the other dangerous, and with full knowledge that one method of performing the duty is safe and the other dangerous and with full opportunity to make a choice as to which method he shall adopt, voluntarily chooses the dangerous method, such conduct on his part constitutes negligence.”
This instruction suffers not only from a poor choice of words, but from a wrong concept.
Certainly it would have required prescience on the part of Marshall to know that to remain standing in his posh
But in the manifested judgment of the driver of the jitney, there was a risk in Marshall’s remaining at his station but it could have been only the risk attendant on the driver’s traverse of a narrow place but certainly not of the accident in the manner in which it actually happened. For if the jitney driver knew it was going to happen he presumably would not have attempted to negotiate the passage. Assuming that the jury did not give the word “dangerous” in the instruction the meaning of “some contingent evil in prospect”, but interpreted the instruction to mean that Marshall was warned that there was an unsafeness about his position which could have been eliminated had he changed that position, but that he chose to take the chance, and was consequently injured, the instruction embodies a wrong concept. This is succinctly stated in the opinion of Mr. Justice LATIMER as follows: “The test to determine plaintiff’s conduct is not whether there were safer places which could have been selected by him, but rather whether or not under the facts and circumstances known to him he acted as a reasonably prudent person.”
Therefore, I agree that Instruction # 7 was prejudicial because the measure of the duty imposed on the plaintiff was not that required by the law.
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