Opinion ID: 774360
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Challenges to the Form of the Verdict

Text: 33 Because the parties could not agree on how to word a special verdict form, the district court created a form on its own, essentially a general verdict form. Deckers contends now that there were several errors inherent in the verdict form. These are not claims about the way the jury answered the form's interrogatories, rather these are allegations that errors were built into the form itself. We hold that Deckers waived these contentions by failing to raise them until after the jury had rendered its verdict and was discharged. Cf. Home Indem. Co. v. Lane Powell Moss and Miller, 43 F.3d 1322, 1331 (9th Cir. 1995) (holding that a party waived its objection to the jury's verdict by not objecting to an alleged inconsistency prior to the dismissal of the jury). 34 The district court gave the parties ample opportunity to object to errors in the form of the verdict. The court expressly asked the parties if they objected to the verdict form when it first distributed it. Defendants objected only that a special verdict form should have been used instead. Later that day, after the court had instructed the jury, it asked again whether the parties had any objections; again, Deckers lodged only its general complaint against the form. During the three days that the jury deliberated, Deckers could have objected to problems with the form, but did not. Finally, Deckers could have objected after the verdict had been announced but before the jury was released. 3 By waiting until post-trial motions to raise its specific contentions, Deckers prevented the court from correcting any problems ex ante and, for some of these contentions, prevented the development of an adequate record. 35
36 The verdict form required the jury to assign a separate damages figure for each cause of action. Deckers waived the argument that the jury double-counted by returning five damages figures (one for each cause of action) for each plaintiff. By failing to raise this argument until after the jury was discharged, the district court had no chance to develop a record of how the jury apportioned damages. Without this record, we decline to speculate and allow the verdicts to stand. 37
38 Deckers waived its objection to the verdict form's allowance for damages for civil conspiracy. Although this issue involves a pure question of law -is civil conspiracy a source of a separate actionable wrong that can sustain a damages verdict under Montana law? -we decline to exercise our discretion to consider it. Unlike some of the other arguments discussed in this section, Deckers did not even squarely raise this argument in its post-trial motions. The district court was never given a chance to pass on this issue, and there is no danger that a manifest injustice will result from our refusal to consider it. See Los Angeles News Serv. v. Reuters Television Int'l, Ltd., 149 F.3d 987, 996 (9th Cir. 1998). For these reasons, we decline also to reach Deckers' related argument that it could not be liable for conspiracy unless Granville was also found liable. 39
40 Deckers also charges error in the conflation on the general verdict form of contractual and tortious breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. This charge of error should have been manifest on the face of the form, and Deckers waived it by not raising it before the court released the jury.