Lingo v. Young & Vann Supply Co.

257 So. 2d 328, 288 Ala. 80, 1971 Ala. LEXIS 663
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedAugust 12, 1971
Docket6 Div. 665
StatusPublished

This text of 257 So. 2d 328 (Lingo v. Young & Vann Supply Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lingo v. Young & Vann Supply Co., 257 So. 2d 328, 288 Ala. 80, 1971 Ala. LEXIS 663 (Ala. 1971).

Opinion

SIMPSON, Justice.

This case was brought by the widow and dependent children of Walton Edsol Lingo, deceased, under § 312, Tit. 26, Code of Ala. (1958) for the wrongful death of Walton Edsol Lingo.

The complaint as last amended charges defendants Boston & Lockport Block Co., Inc. and Young & Vann Supply Co. with negligence resulting in the death of plaintiffs’ decedent in the following language:

“Plaintiffs further aver that the death of plaintiffs’ deceased husband and father respectively, on the aforesaid date and occasion was as the proximate result of the negligence of the defendant, Boston & Lockport Block Co., Inc. in negligently manufacturing the said mortise wood blocks and tackle with an inherently or imminently dangerous and defective steel hook or in negligently failing to warn of the low load capacity of said steel hook on said blocks and tackle combined and concurred with the negligence of Young & Vann Supply Co., Inc., in negligently failing to warn of the low load capacity of said blocks and tackle with said hook attachment and in negligently failing to warn of the inherently or imminently dangerous and defective design of said blocks and tackle and steel hook attachment which the said defendant knew or in the exercise of' reason[82]*82able diligence should have known and as a proximate consequence of the said combined and concurring negligence of the defendants aforesaid plaintiffs deceased husband and father respectively, suffered injuries from which he died January 11, 1966.”

American Mutual Liability Insurance Co., the deceased’s employer’s workmen’s compensation insurer, intervened.

The defendants filed pleas in short by consent. The case was tried for five days to a jury, which returned a verdict in favor of the defendants.

The appellants filed a motion for a new trial which was overruled. This appeal followed.

The record in this case runs to almost 800 pages. The brief filed by appellant contains 290 pages. There are 55 assignments of error; however, the appellant argues only 4. The first two assignments argued are numbered 27 and 55, which involve a statement made by the attorney for Boston & Lockport in argument to the jury. The argument and objections made and the comment of the court with respect thereto are as follows:

“ * * * they’ve been manufacturing these blocks since Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-four, and they take pride in their work and think they have a fine product, and they’ve been manufacturing them the same way and no Jury has ever told them before that they would have to put—
“MR. ELLIOTT: We object to any such argument. No evidence of such as that, may it please the Court, what some other Jury might have done.
“MR. PORTERFIELD: I’ve got a right to make such comments.
“TPIE COURT: Go ahead and make them. Overruled.
# * * * * *
“MR. ELLIOTT: Did I understand you to permit him to say what other jurys [sic] have done?
“THE COURT: I’ll take care of that.”

The attorney for the appellee never finished the sentence he was making after the objection was interposed, but went on to other matters. Appellant’s attorney said in closing argument:

“If they’ve been making these same blocks for — since 1884 and they haven’t had any changes in them, and they haven’t had any jury verdict in them, it’s about time somebody brought in a big verdict to make them do something to save people’s lives and quit endangering their lives.”

The appellant argues that the statement commenced by the attorney for Boston & Lockport Block Co. in closing argument was so highly prejudicial that the trial court should be reversed for having failed to grant a new trial based upon this ground. We cannot agree. In the first place, the trial court emphatically instructed the jury that argument of counsel was not to be considered as evidence in the case. In the second, there is no indication of what counsel might have said had he completed the sentence he started. Appellant’s counsel himself countered what he assumed the statement would have been in his own argument. In Ala. Great So. RR. Co. v. Gambrell, 262 Ala. 290, 78 So.2d 619, the late Justice Stakely said:

“ * * * it is expected that counsel will strike hard blows in behalf of his client but, of course, the blows must not be foul blows.
* # * * * *
“There are other considerations which should be kept in mind in deciding the action to be taken by us. In every instance where prejudicial conduct was claimed, the court took repressive action and expressly instructed the jury not to consider the words or attitude of counsel. Often we have held that such action on the part of the court removes the harm. Smith v. Clemmons, 216 Ala. 52, 112 So. 442; Birmingham Amusement [83]*83Co. v. Norris, 216 Ala. 138, 112 So. 633, 53 A.L.R. 840; Birmingham Electric Co. v. Latham, 249 Ala. 592, 32 So.2d 515; Alabama Great Southern R. Co. v. Swain, supra [248 Ala. 535, 28 So.2d 714], At a number of points in the course of the trial counsel for the plaintiff stated that undoubtedly a motion for a mistrial would lie but that he would not make the motion. In fact at no stage in the trial or before the case was submitted to the jury was there any motion for a mistrial. This seems to us to be a speculation on the verdict of the jury. If there was prejudicial conduct counsel should have insisted on a mistrial and not submitted the case to the jury and then seek to set the verdict aside because of prejudicial conduct, ‘ “unless the argument was ‘so grossly improper and highly prejudicial, that its evil influence and effect could not be eradicated from the minds of the jury by any admonition from the trial judge.’ ” ’ National Biscuit Co. v. Wilson, 256 Ala. 241, 54 So.2d 492, 497.”

We fail to find that the partial statement complained of was so grossly improper and highly prejudicial that its effect (if any it had) could not be eradicated from the minds of the jury. All of our cases recognize that jury verdicts should not be set aside on the grounds complained of unless the conduct of counsel reaches the degree where it can be called grossly improper and highly prejudicial. In Birmingham Electric Co. v. Perkins, 249 Ala. 426, 31 So.2d 640, this court held:

“Nor will the action of the trial court in regard to the alleged prejudicial remarks made by counsel * * * during his argument to the jury be disturbed unless we conclude from the entire record that substantial prejudice * * * has resulted therefrom.”

We do not find that prejudice here. See also Birmingham News Co. v. Payne, 230 Ala. 524, 162 So. 116; Adams v. Queen Insurance Company of America, 264 Ala. 572, 88 So.2d 331.

The only other assignments of error argued by appellant deal with the court’s giving two written charges at the request of appellee Boston & Lockport Block Company. These charges are as follows :

“27.

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Related

First National Bank of Mobile v. Ambrose
119 So. 2d 18 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1960)
National Biscuit Co. v. Wilson
54 So. 2d 492 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1951)
Alabama Great Southern Railroad Co. v. Gambrell
78 So. 2d 619 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1955)
Adams v. Queen Insurance Company of America
88 So. 2d 331 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1956)
Birmingham News Co. v. Payne
162 So. 116 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1935)
Birmingham Electric Co. v. Latham
32 So. 2d 515 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1947)
Alabama Great Southern R. Co. v. Swain
28 So. 2d 714 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1947)
Smith v. Clemmons
112 So. 442 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1927)
Birmingham Electric Co. v. Perkins
31 So. 2d 640 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1947)
Birmingham Amusement Co. v. Norris
112 So. 633 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1927)
Alabama Great Southern Railroad v. Jones
71 Ala. 487 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1882)
Birmingham Rolling Mill Co. v. Myer
43 So. 492 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1907)
Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Hyatt
43 So. 867 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1907)

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Bluebook (online)
257 So. 2d 328, 288 Ala. 80, 1971 Ala. LEXIS 663, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lingo-v-young-vann-supply-co-ala-1971.