Opinion ID: 556408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Damages Issues and Other Arguments

Text: 53 Defendants also argue that the jury's damage award against the County should be reduced because it is duplicative. In rendering its verdict in conjunction with interrogatories on a form submitted to them by the court, the jury found damages against the County in the total sum of $150,000 for each plaintiff, that is, $75,000 on the state law cause of action for malicious prosecution and $75,000 on the section 1983 action. Defendants claim that since the elements of damage caused by the two causes of action are identical and arise out of the same acts, plaintiffs should be entitled only to a single recovery. Accordingly, they maintain that the assessment of damages for each plaintiff should be reduced from $150,000 to $75,000. 54 Defendants rely on Wickham Contracting Co. v. Board of Education, 715 F.2d 21, 28 (2d Cir.1983), which held that when a plaintiff seeks compensation for the same damages under different legal theories of wrongdoing, the plaintiff should receive compensation for an item of damages only once. We agree with that proposition, but are not persuaded that it was violated here. In Wickham, the court was dealing with a discrete set of acts--namely, pressure on third parties to cease doing business with an aggrieved company--and a single type of injury--namely, economic injury to an ongoing business enterprise. In the present case, however, plaintiffs presented substantial evidence indicating that they suffered from multiple injuries as a result of the violation of their rights under state and federal law. These injuries included, among others, pain and suffering accompanying an extended period of prosecution, several days of false imprisonment for one of the plaintiffs, psychological trauma induced by the improper exercise of the police and prosecutorial apparatus, loss of job opportunities owing to the effects of municipal harassment and substantial attorney's fees in the range of $45,000 for each plaintiff. From this vantage-point, the jury's damage award of a total sum of $150,000 for each plaintiff was by no means excessive and fell comfortably within the range of the jury's proper discretion. 55 Defendants argue that the fact that the jury divided their award for each plaintiff into two equal parts--$75,000 on the state law cause of action and $75,000 on the federal cause of action--indicates that the jury impermissibly compensated each plaintiff twice for identical injuries. But it is equally conceivable that the jury found that each plaintiff suffered $150,000 worth of discrete, unduplicated injuries as a result of the County's violations of law, and merely split the total amount equally between the state and federal causes of action in announcing their award to the court on the form submitted to it. This supposition is supported by the jury's insistence, in response to the court's appropriate polling after the verdict, that the jury did intend to award a total of $150,000 to each plaintiff and that the damages awarded under state law and federal law were independent. 56 Duplication of recovery occurs by compensating a single injury under two different names, Hysell v. Iowa Public Serv. Co., 559 F.2d 468, 473 (8th Cir.1977). However, defendants do not demonstrate that a jury's award is duplicative merely by noting that it allocated the damages under two different causes of action. It is, of course, possible that the jury committed the error of duplicating damages here, but defendants have failed to establish this allegation with any degree of certainty. 57 The determination of the proper measure of damages in a section 1983 action frequently poses difficult issues of law. See Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986). The problem is compounded when there are pendent state law claims and the inquiry whether there was double compensation for a single injury resulting from violation of distinct legal rights occurs after the verdict. It would have been helpful if the district court had emphasized to the jury that it should not compensate for the same injury twice merely because it was caused by the violation of two different legal rights, one state and the other federal. Cf. Carter v. Rogers, 805 F.2d 1153, 1157 (4th Cir.1986). However, the question of duplicative damages was not raised by defendants in their requests to charge or in their objections to the court's instructions on the issue of damages, and the court correctly instructed the jury to award only those damages that would reasonably compensate plaintiffs for whatever injuries were proximately caused by defendants' unlawful actions. The policy of deferring to a jury verdict is a powerful one, even in cases in which the jury has taken action that is at first blush difficult to explain. See, e.g., Auwood v. Harry Brandt Booking Office, Inc., 850 F.2d 884, 891 (2d Cir.1988). Under all the circumstances, we simply do not think that we would be justified in upsetting the jury's award in whole or in part. 58 Defendants further argue that since the jury found that the defendant police officers were not liable for any damages to the plaintiffs, the County had to be treated in the same way since its liability was based upon that of the individual defendants. We do not agree. It was not the case that the only basis for the County's liability here was the conduct of the police officer defendants, since plaintiffs also claimed that high County officials ratified the actions of the individual defendants and the jury was instructed on this theory. However, even if that were not the case, the jury's verdict did not absolve the individual defendants; the jury found that they had violated plaintiffs' federal and state law rights. However, it was entirely within the jury's discretion to impose the burden of compensating plaintiffs for their injuries on the County rather than on individual police officers. In this respect the present case is distinguishable from City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 106 S.Ct. 1571, 89 L.Ed.2d 806 (1986), cited by the County, because in that case the individual police officer was found not liable for inflicting a constitutional injury and this was the reason the Court set aside the finding of liability against the City. 59 Defendants also advance other arguments, including the claim that plaintiffs failed to establish that the individual defendants played a major role in their prosecution. The record makes clear that this argument is without merit. We have considered all of defendants' arguments on their appeal and find them without merit.