Schmidt v. Schwear

I respectfully dissent.

The majority holds that plaintiff’s instructions 16 and 17 which were given by the trial court over defendant’s objection, were erroneous. For the following reasons, I am compelled to dissent from the majority holding that these errors were “harmless.” “The importance of correct instructions was commented on in the case of Sharp v. Brown, 349 Ill. App. 269, the court there saying: ‘It has long been the law that a jury must be especially accurately instructed if the case be one where the facts are close and where a verdict could easily favor either party in the suit.’…