Hunt v. Hunt

387 S.W.2d 234, 1965 Mo. App. LEXIS 708
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 1, 1965
DocketNo. 24021
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 387 S.W.2d 234 (Hunt v. Hunt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hunt v. Hunt, 387 S.W.2d 234, 1965 Mo. App. LEXIS 708 (Mo. Ct. App. 1965).

Opinion

HUNTER, Judge.

This is an automobile negligence case brought on the res ipsa loquitur doctrine by appellant, Helen Patricia Hunt against Basil Dean Hunt. On August 30, 1958, appellant (then single but who married respondent on June 24, 1959) was riding as a guest passenger in a 1955 Chevrolet automobile being operated by respondent in a southeasterly direction on U.S. Highway No. 63 in Schuyler County, Missouri, when, according to the import of her evidence, respondent negligently caused or permitted the automobile to leave the paved road surface and to turn over, injuring appellant.

The trial began July 25, 1963. At the close of all the evidence the court instructed the jury and appellant made only general objections to the instructions offered by respondent, including Instruction No. P-10. The jury verdict and judgment were for appellant in the sum of $6,000.

Respondent’s motion for a new trial filed on August 9, 1963, was sustained on November 5, 1963, by the trial court which declared that “as grounds therefor the court finds Instruction P-10 specified in paragraph 11 of Defendant’s Motion for new trial to be erroneous because said instruction was misleading and confusing in that it told the jury that plaintiff had met the burden of proof if the jury found the facts submitted in Instruction No. P-1 ‘from the evidence in favor of plaintiff’, which eliminated the requirement that the jury consider all of the credible evidence in making its findings.”

On this appeal appellant contends the trial court erred in sustaining respondent’s motion for a new trial by assigning error in the giving of Instruction P-10 because respondent failed to raise specific objections to Instruction P-10 at the trial or in his motion for a new trial, and particularly in paragraph 11 thereof and the trial court’s order sustaining the motion for new trial assigned as error a legal ground or proposition nowhere contained in it.

Instruction P-10 provided: “On the meaning of burden of proof as submitted by Instruction No. D-9, you are instructed that if you believe and find from the evidence in favor of plaintiff, the propositions and issues to be as outlined and required by Instruction No. P-1, the Plaintiff has met and carried such burden of proof and it would be your duty to so find. And on the issue of negligence of Defendant, you are instructed that negligence need not be proved by direct testimony, but negligence may be inferred by the Jury from the facts and circumstances in evidence in the case.” (Italics ours.)

The only portion of the motion for new trial that mentions Instruction P-10 reads: “11. The Court erred by giving Instruction P-10, at the request of plaintiff and over defendant’s objection, because that instruction is confusing, misleading and repetitious, and is contradictory of and repugnant to Instruction D-9. Further, Instruction P-10 is not a correct statement of the law and, when read with Instruction D-9 it is so confusing and contradictory as to be misleading and resulting in no instruction at all, which is understandable on the burden of proof. Furthermore, Instruction P— 10 submitted to the jury a confusing counter-burden of proof instruction which creates a vicious circle and makes the jury feel that the burden of proof instruction is an issue in the case. The last sentence of Instruction P-10 is in error as it assumes the truth of 'the facts and circumstances in evidence in the case’ and authorizes the jury to infer negligence from ‘facts and [236]*236circumstances in evidence’ without requiring the jury to find that the same were true.”

A comparison of paragraph 11 of the motion for new trial with the trial court’s assigned reason for sustaining the motion reveals the trial court did not sustain it upon any specific ground mentioned in the motion. Rather, the only ground the trial court referred to in sustaining the motion that was contained therein is that Instruction P-10 is erroneous “because said instruction is misleading and confusing.” This type of objection and language has consistently been held to be only a general objection rather than a specific one, and this for the reason the “objection” fails to point out with any degree of definiteness what is actually claimed to be wrong with the instruction in such a manner that the trial and appellate courts may immediately perceive the point. Ayres v. Keith, Mo.Sup., 355 S.W.2d 914, 917; Sullivan v. Hanley, Mo.App., 347 S.W.2d 710, 711. Thus, the trial court granted a new trial eighty-eight days after the motion for a new trial was filed and did so by including in its specific reason the general ground contained in the motion that Instruction P-10 is not a correct statement of the law (erroneous) and is misleading and confusing.

As further illuminated in her brief appellant asserts Supreme Court Rules 70.02 and 79.03, V.A.M.R., prevent a trial court from granting a new trial after thirty days after the entry of the judgment because of an erroneous instruction if the objector failed to make a specific objection to the instruction at the trial before submission to the jury or in the motion for new trial, and cannot grant one upon a specific ground not so made at the trial or in the motion for a new trial.1

All of these contentions of appellant have: been answered by our Supreme Court, En Banc, in the recent decision of Woods v. Kansas City Club, 386 S.W.2d 62, decided December 14, 1964. In that case the trial court sustained respondent’s motion for a new trial on the 90th day after it was filed “for error in giving plaintiff’s Instruction No. 2.” Only general objections had been made to this instruction at the time it was offered at the trial and only general objections were contained in the motion for a new trial. The record shows the following entry at the close of all the evidence: “The Court: Let the record show that the Court gives instructions numbered one, two and three offered by the plaintiff, to the giving of which (sic) each of which the defendant duly objects and excepts.” The pertinent portion of defendant’s motion for new trial is: “Because the court erred in giving instructions numbered one, two and three at the request of the plaintiff and over the objections of the defendant.” On appeal appellant asserted Civil Rules 70.02 and 79.03 require that specific allegations of error must be stated in the motion for new trial to preserve these errors for review by either the trial court or appellate court, and contended the trial court was “without authority” to sustain defendant’s motion for a new trial and that defendant was “without right” on appeal to support the court’s order sustaining the order.

In rejecting this contention the Supreme Court stated, “We hold that neither Rule limits or restricts the trial court’s right to pass on its own errors. Civil Rule 79.03 prescribes, inter alia, when it is necessary that specific allegations of error in instructions must be set forth in the motion for new trial in order to preserve the error for appellate review. What was said by the [237]*237:St. Louis Court of Appeals in White v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Mo.App., 218 S.W.2d 795, 798[2], before the adoption of Civil Rule 79.03 which supplanted Supreme Court Rule 3.23 referred to therein, is as true today as it was then.

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Related

Coffer v. Paris
550 S.W.2d 915 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1977)
Silvey v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Company
445 S.W.2d 354 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1969)
Hunt v. Hunt
423 S.W.2d 682 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1968)
McGrury v. Kansas City
397 S.W.2d 688 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1965)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
387 S.W.2d 234, 1965 Mo. App. LEXIS 708, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hunt-v-hunt-moctapp-1965.