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6 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Negligence and No Negligence as a Matter of Law: The Roles of Judge and Jury
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Issues are submitted to the jury if reasonable people could disagree about how to solve the issue. Issues are decided by court if reasonable people could not disagree. (applies to pure questions of fact and mixed questions of fact and law).
Decisions about whether an issue is a jury question is discovered by motions for directed verdict or jury instructions. When granting a motion for a directed verdict, a court is saying that reasonable people should not find for the P/D and so may not do so. Whether a directed verdict should have applied is a question of law that can be looked at again over appeal. If rationale for rule is broadly applicable --> rule of law. If judge thinks that there is an equal chance that P/D could win, then he sends it to the jury. |
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Holmes thinks that judges can set the standard of care anytime when the jury is consistent or inconsistent because the judge has more experience. Greater use of rules and directed verdicts:
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Ex: Baltimore and Ohio R.R. v Goodman: Goodman was killed when the truck he was driving was struck by D's railroad train at a grade crossing. D's defense was that Goodman was negligent as a matter of law and since contributory negligence is a complete defense, the case could not go to the jury. Trial court denied D's motion for directed verdict in its favor, and submitted the issue to the jury which found for P. US Supreme Court reversed holding that nothing is suggested to relieve Goodman of responsibility for his own death and that someone in Goodman's position must stop and get out of the car to look. Court held that directed verdict should have been granted because P was negligent as a matter of law. (FATAL BLOW)
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In Pokora v Wabash Railway Co:
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US Supreme Court faced similar fact situation as Goodman. Trial court granted a directed verdict for D. Court said that P in Goodman may have been contributorily negligent as a matter of law given those particular facts, but that doesn't mean that everyone who hasn't stopped, looked, and listened and gotten out of his car is contributorily negligent. Leave juries to decide.
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Rules v Standards:
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Rules concrete and self-applying norms. Standards are general and leave more discretion for application.
Rules have predicitability and treats cases alike, avoids discretion. Standards are flexible and leave room for distinctions between fact situations |
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2 reasons why we reject Holmes' view:
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1. reasonable people should consider factual variations between cases
2. less elitist for elected judges to leave questions to juries |
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Andrews v United Airlines:
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court ruled that whether D had breached its duty to mainatain safe overhead bins was a question to jury. Although this leaves many similar cases to the jury who can decide things differently, it is not done through rules of law as Holmes wanted
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