Opinion ID: 2625838
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the trial court's faulty verdict and erroneous instruction

Text: ¶ 142 This case was bifurcated, resulting in two different jury trials with verdicts. The jury in the first stage of the bifurcated trial was asked by the special verdict form only whether there was a likelihood of a judgment being entered in favor of various claimants against Curtis Campbell, and whether State Farm had act[ed] unreasonably when it chose not to settle [the various claims] against Curtis B. Campbell for Mr. Campbell's policy limit. (Emphasis added.) Never was the jury in this first stage of the bifurcated trial asked to answer any question that pertained to Inez Campbell, and the jury accordingly never entered any such verdict in her favor. [3] ¶ 143 However, after reciting the jury's special verdict that addressed only State Farm's actions with respect to Curtis Campbell, the judgment entered in the first stage of the bifurcated trial stated, Based on the above findings by the jury, ... plaintiffs are granted judgment of liability against defendant State Farm ... based on State Farm's breach of its duty to act in good faith in defending Curtis Campbell. (Emphasis added.) Therefore, with no further explanation, the court ordered that State Farm was liable to both Curtis and Inez Campbell solely on the basis of the jury's findings that State Farm had breached its duty to Curtis Campbell. This giant leap of faith and logic assumed that liability can arise out of the ether for one plaintiff if a jury finds it for another, a result wholly at odds with Utah procedure and law. See, e.g., Brigham v. Moon Lake Elec. Ass'n, 24 Utah 2d 292, 298, 470 P.2d 393, 397 (1970) (when special verdict submitted, jury finds facts and court applies law); Colovos v. Home Life Ins. Co. of New York, 83 Utah 401, 414, 28 P.2d 607, 612 (1934) (court enters judgment on the verdict); Utah R. Civ. P. 47(q) (jury declares verdict). To be sure, this failure to conform to the verdict was plain error, rendering the judgment void on its face and requiring our reversal of Mrs. Campbell's bad faith claim on appealespecially given the unavoidable conclusion that Mrs. Campbell never had standing to sue for bad faith in the first place. ¶ 144 Moreover, the trial court's faulty judgment eventually resulted in severely misleading the jury in the second stage of the bifurcated trial. Indeed, in the second stage of the case, the trial court erroneously instructed the jury three times that the previous jury had found State Farm liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith even though no such determination had ever been made. State Farm objected to this instruction, but the court gave the erroneous instruction nevertheless. For instance, jury instruction 25 stated: You are instructed that a previous jury in this case has found ... that State Farm acted unreasonably in not settling [the] claims against Mr. Campbell before the Cache County verdicts. This means that State Farm breached its duties of good faith and fair dealing and its fiduciary duty to Campbells to settle the claims against Curtis Campbell within the policy limits. (Emphasis added.) Likewise, jury instruction 28 informed the jury that State Farm breached its fiduciary duties and duties of good faith and fair dealing to the Campbells,  and thus, that the jury could award compensatory damages ... caused by State Farm's breaches of these duties. (Emphasis added.) Even the special verdict questions put to the jury were prefaced with the statement that [i]t has previously been determined that State Farm breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing towards the Campbells. (Emphasis added.) As noted, however, this statement simply was not true. The jury in the first stage of the trial never found liability toward Inez Campbell. The trial court's multiple instructions to the contrary in the second stage of the trial were misleading to the jury and constituted plain and prejudicial error, for the jury's erroneous assumption that State Farm was liable to Inez Campbell for bad faith permeated every aspect of the verdict rendered in the second stage of the trial.