Elmore v. Illinois Terminal Railroad Company

301 S.W.2d 44, 1957 Mo. App. LEXIS 664
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided April 2, 1957·No. 29405·Published·Cited by 21 cases

Opinion

HOUSER, Commissioner.

This is a husband’s suit for loss of services of his wife. Mabel Elmore fell while alighting from a bus operated by defendant. Her husband John Elmore alleged in his petition that in so doing his wife sustained severe and permanent injuries by reason of which she was prevented from performing her ordinary domestic and household duties; that he had been deprived of her services, society and companionship and caused to expend sums for medical expenses. A trial jury awarded plaintiff $4,000. The Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis entered an order sustaining defendant’s motion for a new trial for error in the giving of Instruction No. 8 on the measure of damages. Plaintiff has appealed from that order.

Whether No. 8 improperly allows a double recovery is debatable. We préfer to rest our decision on another ground. ' Defendant’s motion for a new trial assigned as error the giving of Instruction No. 1. The charge of error was general. Defendant, therefore, is in' a position to challenge the correctness of that instruction. White v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 364 Mo. Ill, 259 S.W.2d 795. If the order of the circuit court sustaining defendant’s motion for a new trial was properly entered it must be affirmed regardless of the reason given for the action taken. Defendant says that Instruction No. 1, plaintiff’s main verdict-directing instruction, is erroneous because it required no finding that plaintiff’s wife was in the exercise of due care for her own safety in alighting from the bus. In our opinion the point is well taken.

The accident having occurred in Illinois the law of that state governs as to substantive matters. Rhyne v. Thompson, Mo.Sup., 284 S.W.2d 553; Redick v. M. B. Thomas Auto Sales, 364 Mo. 1174, 273 S.W.2d 228, and cases cited loe. cit. 233. Under the law of Illinois it is incumbent upon a plaintiff, suing for his own personal injuries, to allege and prove that he was in the exercise of ordinary care for his own safety at the time of the accident, Hanson v. Trust Co. of Chicago, 380 Ill. 194, 43 N.E.2d 931; Prater v. Buell, 336 Ill.App. 533, 84 N.E.2d 676; Newell v. Cleveland, C. C. & St. L. R. Co., 261 Ill. 505, 104 N.E. 223, and it is error to omit this essential element of plaintiff’s case in the verdict-directing instruction. Hanson v. Trust Co. of Chicago, supra. This principle has been applied in a suit by a husband for damages for injuries to his wife arising out of an automobile accident. In Durbin v. McCully, 280 Ill.App. 81, it was held that a husband’s declaration did not state a cause of action because it omitted to allege the essential averment of due care on the part of his wife. It follows that Instruction No. 1, in failing to require a finding of due care on the part of plaintiff’s wife, was erroneous.

Plaintiff answers that if there was any error in No. 1 it was cured by defendant’s Instructions Nos. 2 and 3 in which the jury was instructed that plaintiff could not recover if his wife was guilty- *47 of contributory negligence, and that the burden was on plaintiff to show that plaintiff’s wife was exercising reasonable care for her own safety. It is established law in this jurisdiction that the vice of a peremptory verdict-directing instruction for plaintiff omitting an element essential to plaintiff’s right of recovery cannot be cured by a proper instruction given for defendant covering that element. A peremptory verdict-directing instruction must contain all of the facts necessary to the rendition of a verdict for plaintiff and must be complete within itself. It cannot be cured by any other instruction in the series of instructions given. Heigold v. United Rys. Co. of St. Louis, 308 Mo. 142, 271 S.W. 773; State ex rel. Long v. Ellison, 272 Mo. 571, 199 S.W. 984; Banta v. Union Pac. R. Co., 362 Mo. 421, 242 S.W.2d 34; Major v. Berg, Mo.App., 95 S.W.2d 861. The same rule obtains in Illinois. Hanson v. Trust Co. of Chicago, supra, and cases cited 380 Ill. loc. cit. 197, 43 N.E.2d 931; Duffy v. Cortesi, 2 Ill.2d 511, 119 N.E.2d 241.

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Elmore v. Illinois Terminal Railroad Company, 301 S.W.2d 44, 1957 Mo. App. LEXIS 664 (Mo. Ct. App. 1957).

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