Title: PSI Energy, Inc. v. William Lee Roberts, Jr. & Beverly Roberts
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 49S02-0405-CV-217
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: September 27, 2005

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEES 
Robert K. Stanley 
 
 
 
 
 
Linda George 
Kevin M. Toner  
 
 
 
 
 
W. Russell Sipes  
 
 
Jon B. Laramore  
 
 
 
 
 
Kathleen A. Musgrave 
Lucetta Pope 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
Eric M. Cavanaugh 
Plainfield, Indiana 
________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 49S02-0405-CV-217 
 
 PSI ENERGY, INC., 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Defendant below), 
 
v. 
 
WILLIAM LEE ROBERTS, JR., AND 
BEVERLY ROBERTS, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellees (Plaintiffs below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, No. 49D02-9601-MI-0001-687 
The Honorable Kenneth H. Johnson, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition for Rehearing 
_________________________________ 
 
September 27, 2005 
 
Boehm, Justice. 
 
PSI Energy, Inc. has petitioned for rehearing raising an important point of Indiana trial 
procedure that we have not explicitly addressed.  We held that PSI had correctly argued that an 
employee of a contractor hired to deal with asbestos under most circumstances had no claim 
against a landowner on whose premises the work exposing the worker to asbestos took place.  
PSI Energy, Inc. v. Roberts, 829 N.E.2d 943, 948 (Ind. 2005).  We held, however, that the jury’s 
verdict was sustainable under the instruction on premises liability which was based largely on the 
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 (1965) and our decision in Burrell v. Meads, 569 N.E.2d 
637, 643 (1991).  This instruction was given without objection and the appeal did not raise any 
issue as to it or any refused instruction.  Accordingly, the only issue on appeal was the 
sufficiency of the evidence.  On that basis we affirmed the trial court judgment in favor of the 
plaintiff.  As PSI points out, the only authority we cited for affirming the jury verdict under these 
circumstances was Picadilly, Inc. v. Colvin, 519 N.E.2d 1217, 1221 (Ind. 1988), and in Picadilly 
the issue on appeal was whether the jury was properly instructed, not whether the evidence was 
sufficient.  PSI is therefore correct that our holding represented an extension of existing authority 
from this Court on the point of the steps necessary to preserve an issue of sufficiency of the 
evidence in a civil case.  Because this is an issue likely to recur, we grant rehearing to elaborate 
on it. 
PSI seeks rehearing, pointing out that under federal court procedure, and under the 
procedures in some other states, it is not necessary to object to instructions in order to preserve 
for appeal a claim that a motion for judgment on the evidence1 was erroneously denied even if 
the evidence supported the judgment under the instructions.2  The basis for that view is usually 
expressed as the absence of the need to reiterate a position that has already been explained to the 
trial court in other motions.  In this case PSI says it had filed motions for summary judgment and 
for judgment on the evidence that raised the same or related issues.  Of these, only the post-trial 
motion to correct errors is in the record, but we assume the earlier motion for judgment on the 
evidence asserted the same grounds. 
There is, however, an important difference between the Indiana Trial Rules and the 
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that is relevant to this issue.  Under the Indiana Trial Rules, in 
contrast to federal practice, the sufficiency of the evidence in a civil case may be raised as to a 
given issue or the entire case under four different subsections of Trial Rule 50(A).  Specifically, 
                                                 
1 In federal practice this is now denominated “judgment as a matter of law.”  In both federal and state 
practice “directed verdict” and “judgment n.o.v.” were at one time used to describe the same thing. 
2 The federal authority is less than wholly conclusive, but we agree that PSI correctly states the prevailing 
doctrine as expressed by a large majority of commentators and courts.  See generally 9A Wright & Miller, 
Federal Practice & Procedure § 2537 (West 1995 & Supp. 2005). 
 
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the issue may be presented either (1) after the conclusion of the plaintiff’s case,3 or (2) and (3) at 
the conclusion of the presentation of evidence by all parties, or (4) in a motion to correct errors, 
which, pursuant to Trial Rule 59, may be filed within thirty days after judgment.  Federal 
procedure permits a trial court to order a new trial, but does not permit a motion for judgment on 
the evidence to be presented for the first time after judgment.  The federal counterpart to 
judgment on the evidence (“judgment as a matter of law”) may be raised after trial under 
F.R.C.P. 50(b) only if it is a renewal of a motion for judgment as a matter of law made under 
F.R.C.P. 50(a)(2) “at any time before submission of the case to the jury.”  Both before and after 
the 1995 revision of F.R.C.P. 50, failure to present an issue “during trial” under F.R.C.P. 50(a) 
precluded appellate review of the issue.4   
Because a presubmission motion under F.R.C.P. 50(a) is a prerequisite to a post-trial 
motion based on sufficiency of the evidence, in general, federal appellate review of sufficiency 
of the evidence requires a motion under F.R.C.P. 50(a) in the trial court.  9 Moore’s Federal 
Practice, § 50.93[2] (Matthew Bender 3d ed. 2005) (“the reviewing court may not order 
judgment as a matter of law on appeal when the verdict loser fails strictly to comply with the 
procedural requirements of Rule 50(b)”).  In light of the explicit provision in Indiana Trial Rule 
59 for raising sufficiency of the evidence even after judgment has been entered, we think Indiana 
Trial Rules 50(A)(4) and 59 make clear that an issue presented under Trial Rule 59 is preserved 
for appeal even if it was never raised during the trial.  In this respect Indiana trial practice differs 
significantly from federal practice.  Indiana is thus more lenient in allowing belated raising of the 
issue that may be presented under a Trial Rule 59 motion to correct errors.   
                                                 
3 This is carefully described as the completion of the evidence presented by the party with the burden of 
proof.  In this case, as typically, it is the plaintiff’s burden to prove the elements of its claim, and there is 
no issue on which PSI carried the burden of proof.  Under Trial Rule 50(A)(5) sufficiency in a criminal 
case may be raised for the first time on appeal. 
4 Mathieu v. Gopher News Co., 273 F.3d 769, 777 (8th Cir. 2001) (“Strict adherence to the rule [requiring 
renewal of a 50(a) motion under 50(b)] comports with its underlying policy of preventing questions 
concerning compliance with the Seventh Amendment.”); Mid-America Tablewares, Inc. v. Mogi Trading 
Co., Ltd., 100 F.3d 1353, 1364 (7th Cir. 1996) (failure to renew motion for judgment as a matter of law at 
close of the evidence precludes appellate review); Smith v. Lightning Bolt Prods., Inc., 861 F.2d 363, 367 
(2d Cir. 1988) (a party is not entitled to a judgment n.o.v. (F.R.C.P. 50(b)) on a ground not raised in a 
motion for a directed verdict (F.R.C.P. 50 (a))); United States v. Fenix & Scisson, Inc., 360 F.2d 260, 
265-66 (10th Cir. 1966) (trial court must be made aware of the movant’s position during trial before a 
motion for judgment n.o.v. can be entertained).  See generally 9A Wright & Miller at § 2537.   
 
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We believe, however, that a party in a civil trial should be required to present any 
challenges to the instructions at a time when they are still correctible.  Errors in the instructions 
must be preserved by objection to the instruction or tender of an alternative.  Trial Rule 51(C) 
provides:  “No party may claim as error the giving of an instruction unless he objects thereto 
before the jury retires to consider the verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and 
the grounds of his objection.”5  Rule 51(C) thus expresses the same policy reflected in the 
federal requirement of a presubmission motion under F.R.C.P. 50(a):  claim of errors in the 
instructions must be raised in the trial court at a time when they are still correctable.  The jury 
members who have given their service to hear the case should have the opportunity to address it 
under the correct legal rules.  And, of course, retrials, which are the usual result of incorrect 
instructions, inevitably tax judicial resources.   
Under federal practice, the objective of timely focusing the trial court on the issue is 
generally preserved by the requirement that a motion for judgment as a matter of law be 
presented before submission to the jury, when correction of instructions is still possible.  Indiana 
trial procedure permits the sufficiency of the evidence to be raised even after trial.  If the 
instructions are, in effect, subject to challenge for the first time in a motion to correct error via an 
attack on the sufficiency of the evidence under a different rule of law from the rule embodied in 
the instruction, the opportunity for rework of judicial process is maximized.  We explicitly hold, 
therefore, as was implicit in our principal opinion, that in a civil case the only issue preserved by 
a motion challenging the sufficiency of the evidence under Trial Rule 50 or Trial Rule 59 is the 
sufficiency of the evidence under the instructions.   
A secondary consideration sometimes is advanced in support of the federal practice.  
Some have urged that the parties need to submit proposed instructions consistent with the trial 
court’s earlier rulings if they are to be heard on the issue at all, so it is unreasonable to expect 
them to continue to debate the trial court’s earlier rulings.6  We do not find that reason 
                                                 
5 Rule 51(C) does not control this appeal because it is sufficiency of the evidence, not the instructions that 
PSI challenges on appeal.  The quoted Trial Rule 51(C) language appeared in F.R.C.P. 51 until 2003 and 
the federal doctrine on preservation of the issue was well established under the pre-2003 Rules.   
6 The case PSI cites for this issue, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. v. Pressman, 679 A.2d 436, 440 (Del. 
1996), involved an appeal that did challenge the denial of a summary judgment motion and the jury 
instructions.  We agree that if PSI had raised as a ground for appeal the denial of its summary judgment, 
or error in the instructions, those issues would be before us.  We also agree that a party who loses a 
 
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persuasive under Indiana state practice.  Unlike federal procedure, in Indiana state courts it is 
sufficient to preserve a challenge to one of the court’s instructions if a party requests a 
contradictory instruction.  See Fry v. State, 748 N.E.2d 369, 373 (Ind. 2001).  A party may thus 
tender an instruction that reflects the party’s contention as to the applicable law and also an 
alternative instruction that reflects the view of the law previously adopted by the trial court.  
There is no bar to presenting an alternative instruction so long as the party is clear that the 
alternative is language that the party prefers only if the primary instruction is rejected.  See 
Kosher Dairy Co. v. New York, Susquehanna & Western R.R. Co., 91 A. 1037, 1038-39 (N.J. 
1914); 89 C.J.S. Trial § 695 at 322 (West 2001).  If that is done, the error in refusing the first 
choice and also any error in the formulation of the alternative legal rule are both preserved.  The 
trial court is required to consider the issue in light of the evidence as it was presented, and little 
effort is required of the challenging party.   
In addition to the differences between state and federal rules on this point, we think the 
practicalities of life in the state trial system support the conclusion that the instructions should 
govern the standard of review of sufficiency of the evidence.  As a general proposition, trial 
judges in this state do not have the law clerks and other support available to federal judicial 
officers.  The pressures of a trial are great enough without requiring the judge either to take time 
to do legal research or to recall the precise reasoning of earlier rulings in other procedural 
postures.  Requiring the parties to focus the judge at the time of instructions on specific issues, 
even if they may have been raised in motions for summary judgment, has the benefit of 
permitting a review in the light of the evidence actually adduced at trial.7  Accordingly, we hold 
                                                                                                                                                             
motion for summary judgment and must go to trial on the basis of that ruling may tender instructions on 
theories inconsistent with its position on summary judgment without foreclosing an appeal.  But the 
party’s claim of an erroneous jury instruction is not preserved on appeal if the party neither objects to the 
given instruction nor tenders an alternative instruction on that issue. 
7 We recognize that the instructions may be finalized at substantially the same time as a motion for 
judgment on the evidence (directed verdict) is filed.  In this case PSI did file its motion for judgment on 
the evidence before the case was submitted to the jury.  The motion is not in the record, but we assume it 
did, as PSI states, raise the same issues on which PSI ultimately prevailed on appeal.  Indiana Trial Rules 
do not differentiate between the effects of motions attacking the sufficiency of the evidence based on the 
timing of the motion, and we think a bright line rule that instructions must be challenged to preserve the 
issue of sufficiency of the evidence under the instructions is desirable.  PSI also notes that it filed motions 
for summary judgment. These were not raised on appeal and the motions are not in the record.  In any 
event, a motion for summary judgment typically presents different issues on appeal because it is to be 
denied if there are, as there usually are, factual issues to be resolved at trial. 
 
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that a claim of sufficiency of the evidence is judged against the instructions.  Error in the 
instructions must be preserved consistent with Rule 51(C). 
The wisdom of permitting a motion based on sufficiency of the evidence for the first time 
after trial was addressed in the course of the 1970 overhaul of Indiana trial procedure that 
brought it generally, but not entirely, in conformity with federal practice.  As long as that 
remains permissible, we think the interest of getting the trial right the first time outweighs any 
injustice in a given case caused by affirming a result that is justified under the unobjected 
instructions, but not supported under the law as found by the appellate court.   
The petition for rehearing is granted.  We affirm the judgment of the trial court. 
 
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Sullivan, and Rucker, JJ. concur. 
 
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