 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
McQuay v. Schertle6/2/1999
not be instructed on the presumption. They misread this paragraph. When evidence of negligence on the part of the decedent is not legally sufficient to make contributory negligence a jury question, there is no need to instruct the jury about the presumption; to the contrary, the plaintiff in that situation is entitled to an instruction that the decedent was not negligent as a matter of law, or to have the subject of the decedent's conduct omitted entirely. See Rice v. Norris, 249 Md. 563, 566 (1968)(if there is no evidence of acts or conduct on the part of plaintiff from which reasonable minds could find or infer contributory negligence, it is error to instruct the jury about contributory negligence); Wheeler v. Katzoff, 242 Md. 431, 435-36 (1966)(if plaintiff's evidence does not disclose negligence on his part and defendant has not produced evidence to warrant submission of contributory negligence to jury, "the court should either instruct the jury that the plaintiff was not contributorily negligent as a matter of law or not instruct it at all as to such negligence."). On the other hand, if the evidence of contributory negligence is so conclusive as to require the entry of judgment for the defendant, the case will not go to the jury and jury instructions are not an issue. Thus, it is only when contributory negligence is a jury issue that the role of the presumption in instructing the jury arises. Under appellees' interpretation of the paragraph quoted above, the presumption of due care would never be the subject of a jury instruction, contrary to the holdings in the long line of cases we have discussed.
In this case, Rebecca Wozniak's conduct immediately prior to the accident was sharply disputed. When, relative to the movement of the tractors, she drove her car from near the side door of Shed 3B to its location at the time of the impact; when and whether she turned her headlights off; and whether she was in a position to see the tractor in time to avoid the accident, or should have been in such a position, all were disputed facts relevant to the question of contributory negligence. In that respect, a presumption of due care instruction would have been appropriate in the absence of any evidence about her conduct immediately before the accident. The eyewitness testimony of Deborah Carakoulakis, who observed the accident first hand but survived to tell about it, and that of Ricky Wozniak, who witnessed some but not all of the events first- hand, compensated, however, for the absence of Rebecca Wozniak's testimony. Indeed, the testimony of those witnesses, particularly that of Ms. Carakoulakis, not only filled the evidentiary gap created by Ms. Wozniak's death, but also did so from her vantage point. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellants' requested jury instruction.
JUDGMENT VACATED AND CASE REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION.
COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLEES.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|