Opinion ID: 197828
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Grant of the Second Trial

Text: 21 The trial court granted the plaintiff's motion for a second trial after it found that the jury possibly could have properly reconsidered the amount of damages to be awarded, but more likely had acted for an improper reason. The defendants argue that the trial court should have accepted the $10,000 verdict and erred by granting the plaintiff's motion for a new trial. The court, they urge, should not have endeavored to choose among the possible explanations for the jury's behavior. As long as there was a plausible explanation for the jury's conduct that was permissible, the defendants contend, the trial court should not have granted a new trial. 22 This argument is unpersuasive. See Phav v. Trueblood, Inc., 915 F.2d 764, 766 (1st Cir.1990) (denial of new trial reviewed only for abuse of discretion). As the defendants acknowledge, First Circuit precedent distinguishes between cases where a jury's verdict is challenged as improper based only on a damage award that allegedly fails to bear any rational relation to the evidence of the damages presented at trial, see, e.g., Correa v. Hospital San Francisco, 69 F.3d 1184, 1197-98 (1st Cir.1995) (verdict alleged to be excessive), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1136, 116 S.Ct. 1423, 134 L.Ed.2d 547 (1996); Milone v. Moceri Family, Inc., 847 F.2d 35, 37 (1st Cir.1988) (verdict alleged to be insufficient), and cases where there is some evidence of an improper verdict based on factors other than the amount of the damage award, see, e.g., Skinner v. Total Petroleum, Inc., 859 F.2d 1439, 1446 (10th Cir.1988), cited with approval in Phav, 915 F.2d at 768; Mekdeci ex rel. Mekdeci v. Merrell Nat'l Lab., 711 F.2d 1510, 1514 (11th Cir.1983) (same). Where the allegation of an improper verdict is based solely on the amount of the damage award, the circumstances under which a trial court may overturn a verdict are more limited. See, e.g., Cigna Fire Underwriters Co. v. Macdonald & Johnson, Inc., 86 F.3d 1260, 1267 (1st Cir.1996) (grant of a new trial appropriate where damages were easily calculable and damage award exceeded maximum value of damages claimed and did not take into account offset to damages); Torres-Troche v. Municipality of Yauco, 873 F.2d 499, 501 & n. 6 (1st Cir.1989) (suggestion that allegedly low damage award indicated compromise verdict was speculation not meeting heavy burden of showing entitlement to new trial). However, where evidence of an improper verdict exists other than the amount of the jury award, such as when a jury answers special questions in an inconsistent manner, the trial court's discretion to grant a new trial is broader. In such cases the court can consider all of the circumstances surrounding the jury's verdict, including the amount of the damage award, in determining whether or not the jury reached an improper verdict. See Phav, 915 F.2d at 768-69. 3 23 The defendants acknowledge the distinction between cases where the only evidence of a compromise verdict is an allegedly insufficient damage award and cases where additional evidence indicates a compromise, but they attempt to cast this case as falling into the former rather than the latter category. However, in this case the trial court's determination did not turn solely on the amount of the verdict that the jury ultimately returned. Rather, the ten-fold reduction by the jury of its initial award of damages and the circumstances surrounding its determination of Lockard's liability provided the primary basis for the trial court's determination that the verdict as finally returned was motivated by compromise or sympathy. The verdict form ultimately completed by the jury was free of any internal inconsistency because it held Lockard and the Heat liable for $10,000 damages suffered by the plaintiff. However, the sequence of events preceding that verdict was properly considered by the trial court as an indication that the jury reached the verdict based on compromise or bias. See id. at 768 (odd chronology of jury deliberations one telltale sign of a compromise verdict). Therefore, the trial court had more latitude in this case in exercising its discretion to overturn the jury's verdict than it would have had in a case where the only basis for the grant of a new trial was the alleged insufficiency of a damage award. See Mekdeci, 711 F.2d at 1513, cited with approval in Phav, 915 F.2d at 768. 24 The trial court determined that the sequence of events leading up to the jury's final verdict in the first trial most likely indicated that the jury had reached its verdict improperly. The jury initially had assessed $100,000 in damages against the Heat but did not find Lockard liable. A short time after being told to deliberate further and requesting additional guidance the jury determined that Lockard was liable but reduced the amount of damages to $10,000. Based on the jury's behavior, it was logical for the trial court to conclude that the jury wanted to give the plaintiff something but it did not want to hold Lockard personally liable for a $100,000 award. There is no indication that the trial judge, who observed the trial, the timing of the questions, and the results of the deliberations, abused his discretion in arriving at this determination. 4 See Phav, 915 F.2d at 766. We therefore decline to overturn the trial court and to reinstate the initial $10,000 verdict.