Dodge v. San Diego Electric Railway Co.

208 P.2d 37, 92 Cal. App. 2d 759, 1949 Cal. App. LEXIS 1759
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 8, 1949
DocketCiv. 3913
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 208 P.2d 37 (Dodge v. San Diego Electric Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dodge v. San Diego Electric Railway Co., 208 P.2d 37, 92 Cal. App. 2d 759, 1949 Cal. App. LEXIS 1759 (Cal. Ct. App. 1949).

Opinion

GRIFFIN, J.

Plaintiff brought this action to recover damages arising out of an accident wherein he was injured while riding as a passenger on a bus belonging to defendant corporation and operated by defendant E’Golf, an employee. La Mesa Boulevard, in the city of La Mesa, is a through boulevard running east and west. Palm Avenue runs north and south. Boulevard stop signs were erected on it as one approaches the intersecting corner. While proceeding westerly on La Mesa Boulevard the bus stopped at the northeast corner of the intersection. Plaintiff trailed nine other passengers in entering the bus, and was wending his way to a rear seat when it started up. When it reached the center of Palm Avenue, the *762 operator of the bus, according to his testimony, observed an automobile traveling north on Palm Avenue. It was about to enter the intersection without stopping at the stop sign or slowing down to any degree. In order to avoid a serious collision, which then appeared unavoidable, he forcibly applied his brakes to make an emergency stop and was successful, by a matter of inches, in avoiding a collision with the automobile so passing the pathway of the bus. Plaintiff, who was still standing, lost his balance or was thrown to the floor and was injured.

Plaintiff alleged in his complaint that defendants so carelessly, recklessly and negligently drove and operated and violently jerked the bus that plaintiff was thrown down with great force and violence and was permanently injured. He sought damages against both defendants. They answered, denied generally the allegations of the complaint, and as a separate defense pleaded contributory negligence of the plaintiff and also that the accident was not caused by reason of lack of any care on the part of any of the defendants, but was unavoidable, under the circumstances related, and that the operator of the automobile, in failing to make the boulevard stop was the sole and proximate cause of the accident and of plaintiff’s injuries.

The trial court held the evidence of contributory negligence insufficient and took from the jury any such claim and refused any instructions based thereon.

The jury returned a verdict for defendants. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment and from the order retaxing costs on a settled statement in lieu of a clerk’s and reporter’s transcript. However, the so-called settled statement contains two volumes of transcript, which contain most all of the testimony taken at the trial, in addition to the instructions offered, given, and refused.

It is plaintiff’s principal argument that the trial court should have granted his motion for new trial based upon the trial court’s refusal to give all of the instructions proposed by him or on the grounds that the instructions as given were erroneous. Plaintiff offered about 26 instructions which covered his version of the evidence. They were most favorable to his theory of the ease. One general instruction (No. 11) contained about 1,700 words. It minutely detailed plaintiff’s interpretation of the issues presented by the complaint and answer. The subject matter contained within this general instruction was sufficiently covered in a general instruction *763 given by the trial court. Many of the instructions offered by the plaintiff and refused by the trial court contained one or two statements, either in the body or at the conclusion of each, that defendants, under the circumstances related, “were required at all times, in starting, operating and stopping said bus, to use and to exercise the utmost and highest degree of care and diligence that very cautious persons would use,” and if defendants failed “even in the slightest” to use such care they were negligent and if such negligence was the proximate cause of the injury their verdict “must be in favor of plaintiff.” The refused instructions were in the nature of formula instructions, each purporting to set forth the circumstances under which the jury would have been required to return a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. They were repetitious in substance and unduly emphasized plaintiff’s theory of the case and stated that under those circumstances a verdict “must be returned in favor of plaintiff. ’ ’ The degree of care required by law of a common carrier was repeatedly stated to be the “utmost” and “the highest” degree of care and diligence of “a very cautious person.” Section 2100 of the Civil Code declares “A carrier of persons for reward must use the utmost care and diligence for their safe carriage, must provide everything necessary for that purpose, and must exercise to that end a reasonable degree of skill. ’ ’ It would be a useless consumption of space and energy to fully set forth all of the 26 instructions offered and to c.arefully analyze them. Some contain erroneous statements of substantive law. Others were not necessarily, applicable, or were sufficiently covered by other instructions. Recognizing the task presented in analyzing the 104 instructions offered by both plaintiff and defendants and the confusion that might exist in the minds of the jurors by giving the many instructions requested by both parties, the trial judge refused all but one of these proffered inst.rnet.ions and proceeded to give his own instructions on the subject matter, contained therein. The instructions as given, generally speaking,-were taken from Book of Approved Jury Instructions (B.A.J.I.). The use of these forms has been commended by reviewing courts. (Temple v. De Mirjian, 51 Cal.App.2d 559, 566 [125 P.2d 544] ; Reed v. Stroh, 54 Cal.App.2d 183, 188 [128 P.2d 829] ; and Wilkerson v. Brown, 84 Cal.App.2d 401 [190 P.2d 958].) There is abundant authority to the effect that it is not necessary for the court to give instructions in the particular language requested. If the subject matter is properly covered and the law applicable *764 to the case is fairly and fully given, that is sufficient. (Folger v. Richfield Oil Corp., 80 Cal.App.2d 655 [182 P.2d 337]; 24 Cal.Jur. § 79, p. 806.) Proposed instructions which are argumentative and misleading should not be given. (Tower v. Humboldt Transit Co., 176 Cal. 602 [169 P. 227].) Instructions should not draw the jury’s attention to particular facts. It is error to give and proper to refuse an instruction that unduly overemphasizes issues, theories or defenses either by repetition or by singling them out or making them unduly prominent although the instruction may be a legal proposition. (Chutuk v. Southern Counties Gas Co., 21 Cal.2d 372 [132 P.2d 193]; McNally v. Casner, 128 Cal.App. 680 [18 P.2d 94] ; Robertsen v. Brown, 37 Cal.App.2d 189 [99 P.2d 288

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Bluebook (online)
208 P.2d 37, 92 Cal. App. 2d 759, 1949 Cal. App. LEXIS 1759, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dodge-v-san-diego-electric-railway-co-calctapp-1949.