<p>1. Instructions—when instruction does not characterize particular acts as negligence per se. An instruction providing that, if the jury “find, from the evidence, that the plaintiff was guilty of negligence” in attempting to do a certain thing, and if they further believe, “from the evidence, that such negligence was the cause of his injury,” then their verdict must be for the defendant, is. proper, and its refusal is reversible error where the only other instructions upon the subject are those requiring ordinary care by the plaintiff. (Magruder, C. J., and Carter, J., dissenting.)</p> <p>2. Same—when instruction is not a repetition of others. An instruction which seeks to apply a principle of law to the facts in the case as found by the jury is not a mere repetition of an instruction stating the principle of law in the abstract.</p>
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1903-02-18
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently October 1939
2 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
¶1dissenting: I think the instruction quoted in full in the opinion was properly refused. It singles out one fact and authorized the jury to predicate negligence upon that instead of leaving it to the jury to take such fact and all the other facts and circumstances shown by the evidence into consideration in determining whether the defendant was guilty of negligence or not.
¶2Mr. Justice Carter: I concur in the dissenting opinion of the chief justice, and think also that the instruction is vicious because it contains an intimation to the jury that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in the respect mentioned in the opinion.
