Case Name: Mrs. Wanda MERCER, Appellant, v. Paris THERIOT, Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1963-03-14
Citations: 316 F.2d 635
Docket Number: No. 19068
Parties: Mrs. Wanda MERCER, Appellant, v. Paris THERIOT, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 316
Pages: 635–647

Head Matter:
Mrs. Wanda MERCER, Appellant, v. Paris THERIOT, Appellee.
No. 19068.
United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.
March 14, 1963.
Rehearing Denied May 9, 1963.
Rives, John R. Brown, Gewin and Griffin B. Bell, Circuit Judges, dissented.
H. Alva Brumfield, Baton Rouge, La., Sylvia Roberts, New Orleans, La., for appellant.
Stanley E. Loeb, New Orleans, La., for appellee.
Before TUTTLE, Chief Judge, and HUTCHESON, RIVES, CAMERON, JONES, BROWN, WISDOM, GEWIN, and BELL, Circuit Judges, En Banc.

Opinion:
WISDOM, Circuit Judge.
In the early hours of the morning of December 19, 1955, Willie B. Mercer's body was found face down on the side of Highway 1 on Grand Isle, Louisiana. The coroner's certificate shows that he died about 7:30 p. m. December 18. Tire marks leading to the body indicated that Mercer was run over while he was on the shoulder of the road. Around 7:30 p. m. on December 18 Paris Theriot, the defendant, had left Fisherman's Bar on Grand Isle, taking Highway 1 to return to his home in Golden Meadow. The chronology and the fact that he had been drinking in Fisherman's Bar since one o'clock pointed to Theriot. In addition, the investigating officers recalled that Theriot had run over and killed a pedestrian in each of two accidents twenty or twenty-five years ago. The police investigation disclosed that the right front fender of Theriot's automobile was dented and the rim of the right headlight missing. There was also a large dent on the hood of the car. Theriot gave two different explanations for the damage to his car: he said that he had run into a cow and he said that a four by six piece of lumber had dented the hood when he ran into a lumber truck. A deputy sheriff found a blue mark on the hood; Mercer had been wearing blue denim overalls. Another deputy found "hair-like substances" underneath the car, a towel bearing reddish stains, and a white powdery substance on the car that appeared to be soap powder from a recent carwashing. The officer took scrapings of the blue spot, the hairlike substances, and the white powder and placed these in envelopes. The envelopes, towel, and certain other articles were brought to the office of the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish and placed in the "evidence locker." This evidence disappeared before the trial and before any of it could be analyzed.
The decedent's wife brought a wrongful death action against Theriot resulting in a jury verdict in her favor for $25,000. On appeal, this Court, Judge Hutcheson presiding and writing the opinion for the Court, unanimously decided that the judgment should be reversed with directions to enter a verdict for the defendant. Theriot v. Mercer, 5 Cir., 1959, 262 F.2d 754; certiorari denied, 360 U.S. 914, 79 S.Ct. 1293, 3 L.Ed.2d 1263.(1959). The Court pointed out that highly prejudicial testimony, which should not have been admitted, and inflammatory trial tactics of the plaintiff's attorney had the effect of denying the defendant a fair trial. The Court rested its decision on insufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict: there was a "complete absence of any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that Theriot's car struck the deceased or that Theriot was in anywise negligent". 262 F.2d at 759. Nevertheless, the Court felt that the plaintiff should be given an opportunity to better her presentation of the case by producing additional evidence — if she could — to justify a new trial. The mandate therefore directed the district court
" to enter a judgment for the defendant unless plaintiff, within a time and under conditions to be fixed by the district judge, makes a satisfactory showing that on another trial evidence of sufficient probative force to justify submission of the cause to the jury will be offered, in which event the judgment shall be for a new trial." Theriot v. Mercer, 262 F.2d 754, 761.
In accordance with the mandate, the trial court notified the plaintiff that judgment would be entered for the defendant unless she tendered sufficient evidence to justify submission of the cause to the jury. The plaintiff then filed a "motion for a new trial" and submitted as supporting evidence a report and certain depositions from police officers. The report was a statement from a safety engineer and accident analyst that, in his opinion, the photographs and medical reports demonstrated that the damage to Theriot's car was caused by its impact with Mercer. The depositions showed some skullduggery in the sheriff's office with regard to the missing evidence and indicated also that some of the officers had heard that Theriot had purchased the missing headlight rim from someone who had found it at the scene of the accident. The district court denied the motion for a new trial. "The evidence", a minute entry states, "while persuasive, would be inadmissible in a new trial." Leaning over backwards to be fair, the Court granted a rehearing. On rehearing, the district judge stated from the bench that there was no question in his mind "that there was a denial of justice in this case" and no question in his "mind either that Paris Theriot killed this man", but he felt compelled to deny the motion on the ground that the evidence tendered was not competent, and that the plaintiff had not met the conditions for a new trial required by the mandate. The plaintiff now appeals from this denial of the motion for a new trial.
On this second appeal the panel to which the case was assigned on its own motion invoked a hearing en bane. The Court en banc affirms the action below and dismisses the appeal.
I.
If the order now appealed from had indeed been an order denying a "motion for a new trial", as the plaintiff termed it, the order would be unappealable. Sobel v. Diatz, 1951, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 329, 189 F.2d 26; Bass v. B. & O. Terminal Co., 7 Cir., 1944, 142 F.2d 779, cert. den'd 323 U.S. 775, 65 S.Ct. 135, 89 L.Ed. 619. But the motion is not the motion for a new trial contemplated in Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. Such a motion "serve [s] the function of allowing a party to seek to have the trial court correct errors, both of fact and law, that [occur] in the trial of the action." 6 Moore's Federal Practice 59.03 (1961). An order for a new trial reopens the issues of an action for a new trial on the merits, in whole or in part, before, an appeal on the merits. Here, however, the plaintiff's motion served a different function. It was filed in direct response to the invitation in this Court's mandate that the plaintiff present new evidence. If the plaintiff had made "a satisfactory showing that on another trial evidence of sufficient probative force to justify submission of the cause to the jury [would] be offered," the plaintiff would have been entitled to a "judgment for a new trial." Denial of the motion was a final decision by the district court that the plaintiff had failed to meet the terms of the mandate. The Court therefore holds that in the circumstances of this case the denial of the motion was an appealable order.
II.
The argument is made that since the district court entered judgment in compliance with the mandate on the former appeal, the judgment is not appeal-able. The contention is, that when judgment is entered after a new trial there is no question of jurisdiction to entertain a subsequent appeal; but when there has been no new trial, as in this case, the judgment entered is that of the appellate court itself and there is simply nothing from which to appeal. This rule has been consistently followed in this circuit. See Davis v. United States, 5 Cir., 1957, 244 F.2d 308; Amalgamated Assn. etc., v. Southern Bus Lines, Inc., 5 Cir., 1953, 201 F.2d 53; Seagraves v. Wallace, 5 Cir., 69 F.2d 163.
But the appellant is not appealing from a decree that is in effect the decree of the court issuing the mandate. The mandate left open the question of the sufficiency of the additional evidence to support a new trial; the order therefore adjudicated a subsequent issue not determined by the judgment which was the basis for the mandate. The appellant contends that the district court both misconstrued the mandate and was guilty of an abuse of judicial discretion in deciding the issue created by the mandate. An appeal lies, therefore, to review the action of the district court to determine whether it gave effect to the mandate. In re Sanford Fork & Tool Co., 160 U.S. 247, 16 S.Ct. 291, 40 L.Ed. 414; Metcalf v. City of Watertown, 1895, 7 Cir., 68 F. 859; Mercoid Corp. v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., 1944, 7 Cir., 142 F.2d 549, cert. den'd 320 U.S. 661, 64 S.Ct. 268, 88 L.Ed. 376.
III.
The second appeal does not require a reconsideration of the merits. The narrow questions before the Court en banc are whether the district court properly construed the mandate and whether the district court abused its discretion in holding that the plaintiff failed to meet the terms of the mandate, that is, failed to make a satisfactory showing that the additional evidence would justify submission of the case to the jury. Accordingly, it is unnecessary to consider the application of the "law of the case doctrine". See Lincoln National Life Insurance Company v. Roosth, 5 Cir., 1962, 306 F.2d 110.
A. This Court directed that a new trial be granted upon plaintiff's showing evidence of "sufficient probative force to justify submission of the cause to the jury." Instead, the appellant argues, the district judge adopted a different, more stringent requirement. He required that the evidence be "additional" and "direct".
We hold that the district judge properly construed the mandate. The mandate is meaningless unless it refers to "additional" evidence, for the former opinion holds that the evidence in the record was insufficient to support a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. It is true that the district judge referred to the lack of new "direct" evidence but the basis for his holding was that the evidence offered was hearsay and incompetent, not that it was indirect and circumstantial.
The appellant argues also that a reading of the Court's first opinion shows the chief ground for reversal to have been counsel's inflammatory trial tactics. To overcome this, counsel argues, it is necessary only to have a new trial which, he assures us, can be had in an atmosphere free from all overtones of passion and prejudice. This proposed solution oversimplifies the problem. In its original opinion the Court severely condemned the trial tactics of the plaintiff's counsel and disapproved of the trial judge's admitting certain testimony that was irrelevant and prejudicial, but the court squarely held that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict. The mandate looked to new probative evidence sufficient to justify a new trial, not to a new trial on counsel's promise to avoid improper tactics; otherwise, the Court would simply have remanded the case for trial.
B. Coming now to the sufficiency of the additional evidence to justify a new trial, we find ourselves in agreement with the district judge.
In support of his motion for a new trial the defendant offered ten depositions, seven from witnesses who had testified at the trial. Most of this "evidence" related to the missing headlight rim. The depositions show that up and down the bayou there were people who knew people who knew that there was a going price for the missing headlight rim. There were conflicting rumors that Prudhomme had the rim, or Verdón had the rim, or Guidry had the rim, or Nolte Theriot had the rim, and that the defendant had purchased it. But Prudhomme testified that he .did not have the rim; someone had told him that Guidry had it and was holding it for $10,000. Guidry said he had heard that Theriot's son had the rim. Verdón denied having found the rim and denied that anybody told him that anyone had found the rim. Nolte Theriot said that he had had nothing to do with the rim. Gilbert Duet testified that a deputy sheriff "just passing through" had told him that he had heard that the rim had been found but he did not say who had found it. The depositions contain testimony of no higher degree of reliability relating to a "report" of a pay-off, presumably by Theriot, to some person (unknown) who destroyed the evidence in the Sheriff's "evidence locker". In short, the additional evidence was hearsay of the rankest sort. It lacked probative force because it was incompetent, not because it was indirect or circumstantial evidence.
The accident analyst's report adds little support to the plaintiff's cause. It is of doubtful admissibility because it comes close to taking over the jury's function of deciding ultimate facts. At best the report is merely cumulative.
The district judge correctly interpreted the mandate and correctly ruled that the additional evidence was of insufficient probative value to justify a new trial The judgment is
Affirmed.
. "In the light of the errors above referred to, if the evidence in the case had been ample to support the verdict and the verdict and judgment, but for the manner and way in which the case was tried, could stand, the judgment would have to be reversed for the errors which, dominating the trial, deprived the defendant of his day in court and caused his conviction, on rumor and hearsay, not of negligent fault but of bribery and corruption." (262, F.2d 754, 758.)
"We, therefore, agree with the appellee's statement on page 6 of her brief that, although the defendant denied making a pay-off or giving any political contribution to the sheriff in the sheriff's race that was going on at that time (and nobody gave testimony to the contrary), the jury nevertheless convicted Theriot of making such a pay-off. Indeed it was the admission of this wholly inadmissible and highly prejudicial hearsay testimony, the introduction of which should have caused a mistrial, which changed the case from a suit for damages into an inquisition into fraud and wrong doing in the sheriff's office, a matter which, in the state of the evidence, had nothing to do with the case and could have had no effect on it except the unlawful one of depriving the defendant of a fair trial on the charge of negligence made but not proven." (262 F.2d at 757.)
. The district court stated:
"[T]he Fifth Circuit ruled that there was not sufficient evidence to support the verdict. And that unless the Plaintiff was able to, on his motion for a new trial, to advance additional evidence which would make out a case for the Jury, the verdict for the Defendant should be granted. And after reviewing the new evidence which the Plaintiff provided, I felt that while the evidence was persuasive and it showed skulduggery in this case, that the sheriff's locker had been rifled and the evidence which was taken from Paris Theriot's car was destroyed so it couldn't be produced in his criminal case or civil case involving this death, there was still no direct evidence. There was just talk among the deputies who were concerned with obtaining the evidence and who, unfortunately, were unable to get the evidence when they went to the locker to get it in order to bring it to the laboratory to have it examined. I felt that the evidence, as produced under the application for new trial, was not competent evidence. In other words, it would have violated the hearsay rule if admitted, and that is the basis on which I denied the application for a new trial.
"It is my view the Fifth Circuit did say that as tried originally there was not sufficient evidence. There is no doubt that it said that unless additional substantial evidence was presented on application for new trial, the verdict should be for the Defendant. That was the basis of my ruling."