Wofford v. Bonilla

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
May 4, 2009
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
NORMA A. WOFFORD,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 08-7069
(D.C. No. 6:07-CV-00013-KEW)
JAMIE BONILLA, individually, (E.D. Okla.)
Defendant-Appellee.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BRISCOE, BALDOCK, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff Norma A. Wofford was injured in a traffic accident while riding as
a passenger in a minivan that collided with a tractor-trailer driven by defendant
Jamie Bonilla. A jury found that Mr. Bonilla was not negligent, and the district
court entered judgment in his favor. Ms. Wofford appeals, arguing that the
district court improperly instructed the jury on passenger negligence. We have
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is
not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,
and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Because we conclude that any alleged error
concerning the court’s passenger-negligence instruction was harmless, we affirm.
I
Ms. Wofford was riding in the front passenger seat of a minivan driven by
Betty Reese. Ms. Reese stopped behind another car at the intersection of
Choctaw Road and Highway 69 in Durant, Oklahoma. The intersection is
normally controlled by a standard overhead traffic signal, but due to an earlier
accident, the traffic signal was flashing yellow for traffic on Highway 69 and red
for traffic on Choctaw Road. In addition, traffic on Choctaw Road in Ms. Reese’s
direction of travel was controlled by two stop signs, one on either side of the
road, and a flashing, temporary message board indicating that the cross-traffic on
Highway 69 did not stop. When the car in front of Ms. Reese started across
Highway 69, she followed.
Mr. Bonilla was driving his tractor-trailer on Highway 69, which is a
four-lane, divided road, and collided with the minivan. Ms. Wofford sustained
serious injuries. She filed this diversity suit, asserting a claim of negligence
against Mr. Bonilla. Her theory of negligence was that, as Mr. Bonilla
approached the intersection in the right-hand lane behind another truck, he saw
Ms. Reese’s minivan and noticed that she was not looking in his direction. He
changed lanes and could no longer see the minivan because of the other truck.
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Also, Ms. Wofford contended that he was driving too fast for conditions and took
improper evasive actions.
At trial, Ms. Reese took responsibility for the accident, testifying that while
stopped at the intersection, she was talking and laughing with Ms. Wofford,
which distracted her from the flashing red light, the stop signs, and the message
board. Ms. Wofford denied this. Mr. Bonilla requested an instruction on the duty
of a passenger. In pertinent part, it stated that a passenger has a duty to “warn the
driver of a dangerous condition.” Aplt. App., Vol. I, at 72. The district court,
apparently based on its determination that there was no evidence that
Ms. Wofford was aware of a dangerous situation and failed to warn Ms. Reese,
presented a slightly different instruction at the instruction conference. The
court’s instruction substituted the phrase “refrain from distracting the driver” for
the phrase “warn the driver of a dangerous condition.” Id. at 115 (Instruction
No. 22). Ms. Wofford objected to both the instruction Mr. Bonilla had proposed
and the version that the court drafted and ultimately gave to the jury.
The court also provided the jury with a two-part verdict form. In the first
part, the jury was asked to find in favor of either Ms. Wofford or Mr. Bonilla on
the negligence claim. The second part asked the jury to determine the
contributory negligence of Mr. Bonilla, Ms. Reese, and Ms. Wofford. The verdict
form instructed the jury to complete part two only if it found in favor of
Ms. Wofford in part one. It also instructed the jury that if it found in favor of
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Mr. Bonilla in part one, it was to sign and date the form. The jury found in favor
of Mr. Bonilla in part one and did not complete part two. Ms. Wofford has taken
this appeal.
II
Ms. Wofford argues that because there is no Oklahoma law recognizing that
a passenger has a duty to refrain from distracting the driver of a car, the district
court’s contributory negligence instruction was flawed. She also contends that
the district court should not have given any contributory negligence instruction at
all because, as the court itself concluded, there was no evidence that Ms. Wofford
was aware of a dangerous condition and failed to warn Ms. Reese, as required
under Oklahoma law. We need not reach these issues, however, because we agree
with Mr. Bonilla that even if Instruction No. 22 is substantively incorrect, giving
it to the jury was harmless error. 1
When an objection is raised at trial to a jury instruction, we apply a
de novo standard of review. See Osteguin v. S. Pac. Transp. Co., 144 F.3d 1293,
1
The Oklahoma Supreme Court, expressing concern about confusion
stemming from a contributory negligence instruction when there is no evidence of
such negligence, has held that “instructing the jury on contributory negligence [is]
not harmless error when there [is] no direct evidence or reasonable inference that
the passenger was negligent.” Snyder v. Dominguez, 202 P.3d 135, 137
(Okla. 2008). As noted below, however, whether giving a substantively incorrect
instruction is harmless error is governed by federal procedural law, so Snyder
does not preclude harmless error analysis of the instruction as given, nor does it
require us to determine whether there was adequate evidence that Ms. Wofford
was negligent in some other respect under Oklahoma law.
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1295 (10th Cir. 1998). “A determination of the substance of a jury instruction in
a diversity case is a matter of state law,” but “the question of whether an incorrect
instruction given in a diversity case is prejudicially erroneous is governed by
federal procedural law.” Brownlow v. Aman, 740 F.2d 1476, 1490 (10th Cir.
1984); see also Adams-Arapahoe Joint Sch. Dist. No. 28-J v. Continental Ins. Co.,
891 F.2d 772, 778 (10th Cir. 1989) (holding that under Brownlow, “the question
of whether an error [in giving an erroneous jury instruction] is harmless is one of
federal law”). Under federal procedural law, “[w]e reverse an erroneous jury
instruction only when we have substantial doubt whether the instructions,
considered as a whole, properly guided the jury in its deliberations.” Mason v.
Okla. Tpk. Auth., 115 F.3d 1442, 1454 (10th Cir. 1997). And in the course of our
analysis, “we consider all the jury heard, and from the standpoint of the jury,
decide not whether the charge was faultless in every particular, but whether the
jury was misled in any way and whether it had understanding of the issues and its
duties to determine these issues.” Considine v. Newspaper Agency Corp., 43 F.3d
1349, 1365 (10th Cir. 1994) (quotation omitted).
After examining the jury instructions in their entirety, we do not harbor any
substantial doubt that they properly guided the jury in its task to determine
whether Mr. Bonilla was negligent to some degree. A number of instructions
helped define that task, but two are most significant for present purposes. The
first, Instruction No. 16, informed the jury that “[t]here may be more than one
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direct cause of an injury. When an injury is the result of the combined negligence
of two or more persons, the conduct of each person is a direct cause of the injury
regardless of the extent to which each contributes to the injury.” Aplt. App.,
Vol. I at 106. The second instruction, Instruction No. 29 told the jury in pertinent
part, “If you find . . . that any damages to [Ms.] Wofford were not caused by the
negligence of [Mr.] Bonilla, . . . then you must return a verdict in favor of
[Mr.] Bonilla and against [Ms.] Wofford by so indicating in Part I of the verdict
form provided to you.” Id. at 122. Instruction No. 29 continued:
If you find . . . that any damages to [Ms.] Wofford were caused by
the negligence of [Mr.] Bonilla, then you must determine the
percentage of negligence of [Mr.] Bonilla, the percentage of
negligence of non-party Betty Reese[,] and the percentage of
negligence of [Ms.] Wofford in Part II of verdict form provided to
you.
Id.
These instructions made it clear that the jury could find Mr. Bonilla
negligent even if it also found Ms. Wofford negligent. Together with the verdict
form, the jury’s task was laid out in discrete steps. The jury was first to
determine whether Mr. Bonilla was negligent, under the standards aptly outlined
in other instructions, and then consider contributory negligence on Ms. Wofford’s
part only if the jury found Mr. Bonilla negligent in some respect. The jury found
in favor of Mr. Bonilla, so it had no occasion to reach the issue of Ms. Wofford’s
duty as a passenger and the relationship between any breach of that duty and her
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contributory negligence. In such circumstances, we assume the jury found that
Mr. Bonilla was not negligent independent of its consideration of any
contributory negligence on the part of Ms. Wofford; therefore, any error in giving
Instruction No. 22 was harmless. See Osteguin, 144 F.3d at 1296 & n.4.
(considering alleged error in giving instruction on contributory negligence
harmless under similar circumstances, noting that “there is no reason to question
the common sense assumption that the jury proceeded logically to answer the
questions in order”). Moreover, we do not think that the reference to a
passenger’s duty to “refrain from distracting the driver” in Instruction No. 22
“misled [the jury] in any way” or caused it to misunderstand “the issues and its
duties to determine these issues.” Considine, 43 F.3d at 1365. We are of the
opinion that Instruction No. 22, viewed in the context of all the instructions as
well as the verdict form, did not mislead the jury into thinking that it could find
in favor of Mr. Bonilla simply because Ms. Wofford did not “refrain from
distracting” Ms. Reese, regardless of whether Ms. Wofford had such a duty under
Oklahoma law.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Bobby R. Baldock
Circuit Judge
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