Opinion ID: 75710
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Verdict Form and Special Interrogatories Actually Used

Text: 47 Having rejected the defendants' request for special interrogatories going to the factual issues upon which their qualified immunity defense turned, the court submitted interrogatories of its own to the jury on the merits issue. Those interrogatories, and the jury's answers to them, were as follows: 48 Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence: 49 1. That the Defendants intentionally committed acts that violated the Plaintiff's constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment? 50 Answer Yes or No: Brian Breeden Yes Rudolph Gomez Yes Eduardo Luciano No Note: If you answered No to Question 1 as to each Defendant, you need not answer the remaining questions. 51 2. That the Defendants' acts were the proximate or legal cause of damages sustained by the Plaintiff? Answer Yes or No Yes 52 3. That the Plaintiff should be awarded damages to compensate for physical as well as emotional pain and mental anguish? 53 Answer Yes or No Yes If you answered Yes, in what amount? $25,000 Breeden & Gomez 54 4. That the Defendants acted with malice or reckless indifference to the Plaintiff's federally protected rights and that punitive damages should be assessed against the Defendants? 55 Answer Yes or No Yes If you answered Yes, Brian Breeden $30,000 in what amount? Indicate separate Rudolph Gomez $15,000 amounts as to each defendant. Eduardo Luciano $0 56 SO SAY WE ALL. 57 Those interrogatories are the Eleventh Circuit pattern ones for eliciting a verdict on the merits of a prisoner's excessive force claim. See Eleventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions (Civil) § 2.3.1 (West 2000). The answers the jury gave to them establish that the jury found Breeden and Gomez had intentionally used enough force to cause Johnson damage including physical pain as well as some emotional pain and mental anguish. The jury's answers also establish that the physical and emotional pain and the mental anguish Johnson suffered as a result of Breeden and Gomez's intentional, malicious, and sadistic acts was enough to justify $25,000 in compensatory damages. 58 The jury's answer to interrogatory no. 4 found the existence of either reckless indifference or malice. Because that interrogatory did not ask the jury to specify whether it was with reckless indifference or with malice that Breeden and Gomez acted, the jury's answer did not specify which of the two it found. None of the interrogatories the court submitted to the jury asked it to state explicitly whether the force the defendants used was applied sadistically and maliciously to cause harm. However, in its instructions the court told the jury that: Whether or not any force used in this instance was excessive is an issue for you to decide on the basis of whether such force, if any, was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or whether it was used maliciously and sadistically to cause harm. Reading that instruction and the jury interrogatories and verdict together, the inference is inescapable that the jury implicitly found the defendants had acted with malice and sadistically to cause harm. After all, we must presume that juries follow their instructions. See Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225, 120 S.Ct. 727, 733, 145 L.Ed.2d 727 (2000); Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 206, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 1707, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987)(referring to the almost invariable assumption of the law that jurors follow their instructions, which we have applied in many varying contexts(internal citation omitted)). 59 Therefore, the jury verdict and its answers to the submitted interrogatories, when read against the court's instructions, establish that Breeden and Gomez intentionally, maliciously, and sadistically inflicted pain and injuries upon Johnson, including physical and emotional pain and mental anguish, in an amount sufficient to justify $25,000 in compensatory damages.