Opinion ID: 776872
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Law of Waiver Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 51

Text: 114 Under Rule 51, an objection must stat[e] distinctly the matter objected to and the grounds of the objection. Fed. R.Civ.P. 51. The purpose of the Rule is to allow the trial court an opportunity to cure any defects in the instructions before sending the jury to deliberate. Fogarty v. Near N. Ins. Brokerage, Inc., 162 F.3d 74, 79 (2d Cir.1998). The objections to a charge must be sufficiently specific to bring into focus the precise nature of the alleged error. Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109, 119, 63 S.Ct. 477, 87 L.Ed. 645 (1943); see also Martin v. United Fruit Company, 272 F.2d 347, 349 (2d Cir.1959) (requiring that an objection be specific enough to inform the trial judge of his alleged error so that he may have an opportunity to correct it) (internal quotation marks omitted). 115 The fundamental nature of Ford's position that the court should have charged negligence or strict liability but not both is called into doubt by Ford's own recommendation, made only a few days before taking this position in correspondence with the court, that the district court charge both theories. Ford's position that it believed that one but not both causes of action should be charged was taken only after Judge Buchwald asked the parties whether it would be sensible to follow the approach taken in Pahuta, 170 F.3d at 134-35, in which the plaintiff withdrew his negligence cause of action as duplicative of his strict liability claim. Id. Counsel for Jarvis declined the offer, claiming that Pahuta was limited to its facts and that, in this case, the two theories of liability were not duplicative. Letter of George N. Tomkins, Jr. to Judge Buchwald, July 6, 1991, at 2. 116 The statement by Ford that [w]e have read the Pahuta case and agree with the Court that the Court should charge either negligence or strict products liability, but not both, failed to state distinctly either the matter objected to or the grounds of the objection. Fed.R.Civ.P. 51. The specific objection that Ford asks this Court to read into its pre-trial correspondence is that the jury's finding that the cruise control system of the 1991 Ford Aerostar was not designed in a defective manner presumes that Ford was not negligent in the design of the cruise control system. Ford's statement that either negligence or strict liability, but not both, should be charged, does not distinctly state this objection. Ford's current contention is not that it was error to charge two theories of liability but rather that, after determining that Ford was not strictly liable, the jury should not have considered whether Ford was negligent. 14 Ford's conduct at the pre-trial conference, if anything, obscured any objection it might have made in its correspondence with the court. At the conference, the speaker identified by Jarvis as counsel for Ford explained that it seems that the claim of the plaintiff here is one of negligence and certain product liability. After the court later asked, [s]o you don't want me to charge negligence? the speaker, identified again by Jarvis as a counsel for Ford, responded, Well, we're going to reserve on that. We want you to leave negligence in for now. Pre-trial tr. at 36. Accordingly, Ford did not distinctly state the matter objected to. In fact, it appears to have asked the court to leave both causes of action in the jury charge. 117 Neither did Ford state distinctly the grounds of its objection. In the pre-trial correspondence and conference, Ford made no legal argument for charging only one cause of action outside of the passing reference to our footnote in the Pahuta case. In that footnote, we mentioned merely that the plaintiff had voluntarily withdrawn a negligence charge. Pahuta, 170 F.3d at 134 n. 7. Ford cited no authority to show why the district court should find the negligence cause of action duplicative of the strict liability claim in this case. In recalling how it came to charge the jury under both theories, the district court remarked simply that the plaintiff had asked for the charge and that in one case, presumably Pahuta, the plaintiff[] had agreed to drop one of the claims. After the verdict, in ruling on Ford's motions, the district court rebuked counsel for not calling its attention earlier to the relevant legal authority in New York regarding the similarities between negligence and strict liability for product defects, indicating its suspicion that it appeared that this failure was a tactical decision made for strategic reasons to refrain from informing us of the overlap and potential for inconsistent verdicts. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 587 n. 8. In this regard, it appears that the district court agreed that Ford did not distinctly state the grounds of its objection. Fed.R.Civ.P. 51. 118 On appeal, Ford claims that there was no need to object once the district court had announced at the pre-trial conference that it would charge both theories of liability because any further objection would have been futile. The credibility of Ford's assertion is undermined by Ford's later objection, demonstrating that Ford did not feel constrained at all. Far from futile, this later objection, now accompanied by a reasoned legal argument as to the potential overlap of the two causes of action, persuaded the district court that it should not have charged the jury on both theories. Ford cannot show the futility of future objection because it has not shown that the trial court had been clearly apprised of the possibility of error and had disagreed, or had been given an opportunity to correct the error and had declined to do so. Fogarty, 162 F.3d at 80 (finding waiver after court explicitly asked for both an objection and alternative language, and received, respectively, a vague answer and silence in response). Having failed to provide the district court with an adequate opportunity to consider and deny the objection, a party cannot later argue that any further objection would have been futile. The case Ford cites to support its proposition that objection is not waived if the district court had previously rejected its position, Anderson v. Branen, 17 F.3d 552 (2d Cir.1994), presented a very different factual situation. There, the plaintiffs requested a duty to intercede charge, which was subsequently expressly raised and discussed at length at the charge conference. Id. at 557. The court agreed to give the charge, but then retracted it and stated to counsel that if this is something that we raised the other day, you don't need to repeat yourself. Id. Under these circumstances, we found that further objection to the charge was unnecessary. Id. Because Ford failed to raise expressly its current objection, and thus the district court was never given the opportunity to consider its argument, Ford cannot claim that future objection would have been unavailing. 119 In making this argument, Ford relies on the finding of the district court that [a]lthough it is true that defense counsel did not specifically object to our charge and special verdict questions on the ground that they could lead to inconsistent results, Ford's fundamental position ... had previously been expressed to the Court and therefore it was reasonable for defendant to conclude that future efforts to object would be unavailing. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 589. As discussed above, Fed.R.Civ.P. 51 requires more than the disclosure of a fundamental position desiring one jury charge over another. The federal rules instead require that Ford stat[e] distinctly the matter objected to and the grounds of the objection. Fed.R.Civ.P. 51. Finding that the district court failed to apply this standard, we do not owe deference to the district court's conclusion. See Pullman-Standard, 456 U.S. at 287, 102 S.Ct. 1781 ([I]f a district court's findings rest on an erroneous review of the law, they may be set aside on that basis.). 120 For the reasons stated, under the principles of Rule 51 Ford has waived its objection to verdict inconsistency. As discussed above, we decline the dissent's invitation to ignore our jurisprudence in this area and shoehorn this case into Rule 49 in order to avoid this result. The policy concerns behind the dissent's dissatisfaction with what it perceives as inconsistent verdicts are no more compelling than those behind the principle of waiver. In this ten-year litigation, the issue of the jury charge was litigated extensively. Ford asked for this jury charge, presumably for strategic reasons, and was well apprised of the law of waiver. To excuse Ford from the well-established rules of waiver would permit precisely the sort of sandbagging that the rules are designed to prevent, while undermining the ideal of judicial economy that the rules are meant to serve.