Opinion ID: 611600
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: questioning of jury foreman

Text: 55 PIIGI contends that the district court improperly questioned the jury about its verdict and that it is entitled to a new trial as a result. Rather than returning a verdict assessing a lump sum of damages, the jury assessed damages on each of the various counts on which it found liability. The RTC argued that the court should ask the jury if it intended that all of the damage awards be added to determine the total liability. Counsel for the Union Planters defendants contended that the total liability under the verdict was the largest damage award under a single count--which happened to be $1.5 million for the common law fraud charge. The court asked the jury foreman how properly to read the verdict: 56 Was is [sic] it the jury's intention in awarding the damages that these are awarded separately and are to be added by the Court into a total, or that the total award from the defendants to the plaintiff is limited to $1,500,000 or that is only a component of the total and that all of the damages should be added together? 57 Tr. 2264. The foreman responded that the jury intended the damages assessments for all of the counts to be aggregated for the defendants' total liability. 58 On appeal, PIIGI contends that the district court erred in questioning the jury foreman, on the ground that it is improper to question a jury about its verdict. 13 We disagree. 59 We do not believe that Fed.R.Evid. 606(b) prevents the district court from seeking clarification of this verdict, given the facts of this case. 14 Rule 606(b) forbids a juror from testifying as to matters occurring during deliberations or the juror's mental processes. However, we agree with the Second Circuit that Rule 606(b), by its own terms, is silent as to queries designed to confirm the accuracy of the verdict, and that the rule therefore does not preclude a juror from testifying as to the potential miscommunication of the verdict. Attridge v. Cencorp Div. of Dover Tech. Int'l, 836 F.2d 113, 116-17 (2d Cir.1987); see McCullough v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 937 F.2d 1167, 1172 (6th Cir.1991) (following Attridge and holding that where the district court merely asks for clarification of the final award, Rule 606(b) is not violated). In Attridge, the jury had mistakenly decreased the plaintiff's award by the amount of the plaintiff's fault, and the district court questioned the jurors as to their understanding of the verdict. 836 F.2d at 114-15. 60 We have previously suggested that a district court may question jurors to confirm their understanding of the verdict. 15 In Eastridge Dev. Co. v. Halpert Assoc., Inc., 853 F.2d 772 (10th Cir.1988), the district court had questioned jurors about what they understood their verdict to mean. Id. at 783. We affirmed the district court's decision to amend the verdict to reflect the jury's true decision. Implicit in our decision in Eastridge is the notion that it is proper to question jurors to determine exactly what that true decision is. 61 The advisory note to Rule 606(b) also supports our reading of the rule. As the advisory committee observed, the rule against jurors impeaching their own verdict is designed to promote the jury's freedom of deliberation, the stability and finality of verdicts, and the protection of jurors against annoyance and embarrassment. Fed.R.Evid. 606(b), Advisory Committee Note (citing McDonald v. Pless, 238 U.S. 264, 35 S.Ct. 783, 59 L.Ed. 1300 (1915)). As the committee further observed, [a]llowing [jurors] to testify as to matters other than their own inner reactions involves no particular hazard to the values sought to be protected. 62 The district court's decision to question the jury foreman as to the jury's true decision does not implicate any of the above concerns. Indeed, permitting questioning of jurors in limited instances such as the instant case promotes the value of judicial economy; otherwise, in the event of an ambiguity the court would be left with no other remedies than to order a new trial, even though a simple inquiry could clear up questions about how to read the damages verdict. 16 VI. ALTER EGO INSTRUCTION 63 PIIGI next contends that the district court erred in refusing to clarify its alter ego instruction. The alter ego instruction given by the district court informed the jury that the Plaintiff claimed that defendants Union Planters National Bank and Union Planters Corporation were alter egos of Union Planters Investment Bankers Corporation, Union Planters Investment Bankers Group, Inc., and/or Investment Mortgage Corporation. The court instructed the jury that if it found these defendants to be alter egos, the jury could hold the alter ego corporations directly liable for the obligations of the corporations for which they were alter egos. PIIGI requested the district court to tell the jury that the alter ego doctrine did not apply to any relationship between PIIGI and PAC. The district court refused to give such an instruction because it said the introductory language of the instruction made it clear that it referred only to the Union Planters defendants. PIIGI now asserts that this was error. 64 In reviewing jury instructions, 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. Wheeler v. John Deere Co., 862 F.2d 1404, 1411 (10th Cir.1988) (quotation and citation omitted). Here, the instruction clearly indicated to the jury that the alter ego theory was not being applied to the relationship between PIIGI and PAC. The instruction listed all of the defendants to which the theory applied, and neither PIIGI nor PAC were among the defendants listed. We hold that the district court did not err in refusing to clarify further an already clear instruction on the applicability of the alter ego doctrine.