Title: CAPSHAW v. GULF INSURANCE COMPANY
Citation: 107 P.3d 595, 2005 OK 5
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: February 8, 2005

CAPSHAW v. GULF INSURANCE COMPANY Annotate this Case CAPSHAW v. GULF INSURANCE COMPANY 2005 OK 5 107 P.3d 595 Case Number: 99093 Decided: 02/08/2005 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA TERRY CAPSHAW, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. GULF INSURANCE COMPANY, a Missouri Insurance Carrier, KOCH TRUCKING, INC., a foreign corporation, STAN KOCH & SONS TRUCKING, INC., a foreign corporation, and SAM CORONADO, Defendants/Appellants. ON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIV. II ¶0 Following a rear-end collision plaintiff brought a negligence action against a truck driver, the driver's employer and the latter's insurance carrier. The nonstandard verdict form used authorized the jury to apportion negligence between the litigants in any manner so long as the aggregate sum equaled zero or one hundred percent. The jury, having found none of the parties negligent, awarded no recovery to anyone. The trial judge sustained plaintiff's motion for a new trial. Defendants appealed. The Court of Civil Appeals (COCA), Division II, reversed. On certiorari previously granted, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED; THE TRIAL COURT'S ORDER GRANTING A NEW TRIAL IS REVERSED; AND JUDGMENT ON THE REINSTATED JURY VERDICT IS ORDERED TO BE ENTERED. Barry K. Roberts, Norman, Oklahoma, Joe Farnan and Steve Langer, Purcell, Oklahoma, for Appellee. Earl D. Mills, Dan K. Jones, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Appellants. Opala, J. ¶1 Two issues are presented on certiorari: (1) Did COCA err when it reversed the nisi prius judge's new-trial order? and (2) Did COCA identify and apply on appeal the correct standard of review? Because both questions are answered in the negative, we reverse the nisi prius new-trial grant by applying an analysis that differs from that used by COCA. I. ANATOMY OF THE LITIGATION ¶2 This action arose from an automobile accident in which a pickup truck driven by Terry Capshaw (Capshaw, plaintiff or appellee) was struck from the rear by a semi tractor driven by Sam Coronado, an employee of Koch Trucking, Inc. (together with Stan Koch & Sons Trucking Inc., and Gulf Insurance Co., collectively to be known as Coronado, defendant or appellant). The basic facts are uncontested. Immediately preceding the accident Capshaw was stopped at an intersection awaiting a green traffic signal. Coronado came to a stop behind him. Capshaw proceeded through the intersection and then stopped to make a left turn. Coronado's truck rear-ended plaintiff's pickup. ¶3 A trial by jury dealt with contested issues of liability and with whether Capshaw sustained any injury from this collision. ¶4 On appeal Coronado urged the trial judge abused his discretion because: (1) the record is silent concerning the basis for a new-trial grant; (2) if the basis is an alleged error in the blank verdict form, Capshaw, by his failure timely to preserve this perceived defect, waived the error he now alleges in his motion for new trial; ¶5 COCA did not address itself to whether the verdict form was tainted by fundamental error. Its opinion is bottomed on the rationale that a jury may find liability and yet limit or assess no damages. II. COCA ERRED IN ITS SELECTION AND APPLICATION OF THE PROPER STANDARD OF REVIEW ¶6 We first turn to Capshaw's argument that COCA's pronouncement fails to apply the correct standard of appellate review. COCA's opinion reveals that the issue before it was reviewed as one of law ¶7 A motion for new trial is addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court. ¶8 An appellate court's standard of review is not mere ritualistic legal liturgy. It defines the permissible sweep of critical testing to be undertaken by a reviewing court. Its recitation must be correct and serve more significantly than as an empty gesture. ¶9 Moreover, the burden to establish a trial court's abused discretion when granting a new trial rests upon the appellant, not on the appellee. COCA's choice of words -"Capshaw has not show(n) otherwise" - seemingly infers that appellee has not met his burden to show the trial court's decision is error free. It was Coronado's, not Capshaw's, burden on appeal to show that the trial judge abused his discretion in deciding a critical question of law. In view of its reference to conflicting tests and of COCA's oblique language for defining an appellant's burden on review, we cannot say that COCA's pronouncement was guided by the correctly applicable standard of review. III. THE NEW-TRIAL MOTION A. ARGUMENTS ON CERTIORARI ¶10 Having settled the proper review standard to be used, we now turn to whether the trial court erred as a matter of law when it granted plaintiff's new-trial motion. COCA's opinion rests on the teaching that a jury may legitimately find negligence without assessing damages. ¶11 Coronado responds (1) plaintiff's contention the verdict form confused the jury and tainted the trial's outcome is merely speculative and hence cannot stand as the basis for a new trial and (2) even if the verdict form were incorrect there is here competent proof to support the jury's verdict. B. CAPSHAW FAILED TIMELY TO EXCEPT TO THE BLANK VERDICT FORM ¶12 Capshaw's contention is, in essence, twofold: (1) the blank verdict form was fraught with a fatal facial defect and (2) this defect operated to taint the jury's decision against awarding damages. Coronado's COCA briefs (although not his certiorari materials) urge that Capshaw failed timely to except to the verdict form and hence waived the error he later alleged in his new-trial motion. ¶13 An allegation of error in a motion for new trial must be based on an error preserved in the course of trial proceedings. C. THE VERDICT FORM IN CONTEST CONTAINS NO MANIFEST ERROR ¶14 Because Capshaw urges the blank verdict form is fundamentally (manifestly) flawed - a claim that may be presented absent a preserved trial-court exception - we proceed to review the verdict form in contest. We find it not fatally defective on its face. It is neither inconsistent nor incapable of translation into a final jury resolution fit as a legal judgment. Capshaw's assertion - the aggregate of the parties' negligence must total one hundred percent is mistakenly absent from the form - is incorrect. The form provides that negligence, if any, which is to be apportioned among the parties must total either zero or one hundred percent. This is no misstatement of law. The mere happening of an accident is not indicative of negligence. The jury is the trier of fact. In any negligence case the jury is free to find that none of the parties was negligent. Its freedom to make this choice does not depend on the plead defense of unavoidable accident. Finding no negligence on the part of any party is the jury's prerogative, not an aberration. The jury here was at liberty to assess negligence among the parties in any percentage (equaling zero or one hundred percent) expressive of its findings. The form simply combines the rules of law that pertain to negligence into a single statement. It provides the jury the full panoply of available legal options pressed for by the litigants: negligence, no negligence or contributory negligence. Apportioning one hundred percent negligence among the parties is an option embodied within the form's parameters. The jury did not in this case choose to make this finding. ¶15 Neither party argued that the form restricts the jury's choices. If the form might be perceived as tainted it is only because it might lead one to conclude that when the parties' apportioned negligence does not equal one hundred percent, the verdict should be zero. The form gives the jury a choice between zero and one hundred percent. This is not a fatally defective choice. We would be straining to conclude that it operates to strip the jury of any of its authority to assess negligence in any proportion to its findings. Here, the jury disagreed with the notion of foisting negligence on the defendant and of the defendant foisting contributory negligence on the plaintiff. The record reveals the jury could have inferred that both vehicles were proceeding properly and in the exercise of due care, and that the collision between them occurred without negligence on the part of either driver. IV. SUMMARY ¶16 To preserve for review an alleged defect in a blank verdict form, an exception to the form must be lodged in the pre-submission stage of case, i.e., in conjunction with exceptions to jury instructions. The nisi prius judge's sua sponte notice of an alleged defect, upon which plaintiff's new-trial motion was based, came too late. The error was not preserved for review by a timely exception from Capshaw. Neither is the blank verdict form tainted by manifest error. Although a non-standard verdict form was used, it permitted a jury to find negligence, no negligence or contributory negligence in any proportion that totaled either zero or one hundred percent. The jury, as the trier of fact, is free to decide that neither party was negligent and hence none is entitled to damages. The record reveals competent evidence to support this finding. The trial court erred when it granted plaintiff's quest for a new trial. We hence reverse the trial court's new-trial grant, reinstate the jury verdict, and order judgment to be entered on the verdict. ¶17 On certiorari previously granted upon Capshaw's petition, the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion is vacated; the trial court's new-trial grant is reversed and the judgment on the reinstated jury verdict is ordered to be entered. ¶18 Winchester, V..J., Lavender, Hargrave, Opala, Edmondson and Taylor, JJ., concur. ¶19 Kauger, J., concurs in result. ¶20 Watt, C.J., dissents. ¶21 Colbert, J., disqualified. FOOT