Brian K. Crum v. Jordan W. Horowitz et al.

Summary

The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed a Superior Court judgment entered after a jury found that the defendants were not negligent in a vehicle-versus-pedestrian accident involving a police officer working at a construction site. The court rejected the plaintiff’s challenges to the jury instructions and posttrial rulings, holding that any reliance on excluded expert testimony in denying a new trial was harmless.

Holdings

1. The jury instructions, viewed as a whole, adequately covered the relevant law and did not prejudice Crum; therefore, the trial justice did not commit reversible error by declining the requested reciprocal instructions.
2. The trial justice properly denied Crum's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law because legally sufficient countervailing evidence permitted reasonable jurors to conclude that Horowitz was not negligent.
3. Although the trial justice erroneously relied on an expert opinion excluded from evidence, the error was harmless and did not require a new trial because ample admissible evidence established the same point.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial justice committed reversible error by failing to give requested reciprocal jury instructions concerning a pedestrian's duty to anticipate a driver's negligence and the significance of the absence of a traffic citation.
2. Whether the trial justice erred in denying Crum's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law because the evidence established that Linda Horowitz was negligent as a matter of law.
3. Whether the trial justice erred in denying a new trial by relying on expert testimony that had been excluded from evidence.
4. Whether the challenged comparative-negligence jury instructions presented reversible error despite the jury's finding that defendants were not negligent.

Disposition

affirmed