Opinion ID: 154594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Instructions on the Contract Claim

Text: 20 Having determined that the jury instructions on the gender-plus claim were erroneous, we must now determine whether the error prejudiced B-G Maintenance's defense of the contract claim. At trial, Ms. Coleman argued that B-G Maintenance breached both an express contract to terminate only for good cause, and an implied contract to terminate Ms. Coleman pursuant to the procedures found in the company's employee manual. The court instructed that contract liability could be premised upon either theory, and the jury returned a verdict in Ms. Coleman's favor on both, awarding $85,000 in back pay. 21 B-G Maintenance contends that since the incorrect jury instructions led the jury to conclude that B-G Maintenance had violated Title VII by terminating Ms. Coleman, the jury must have concluded that Ms. Coleman could not have been terminated for good cause. But for a single paragraph in its reply brief, however, B-G Maintenance failed to complain about the jury instruction or evidence dealing with implied contract and progressive discipline. Thus, even if the gender-plus instructions did taint the good cause instructions, the contract award may still stand based on implied contract. It is not sufficient to merely mention an issue in a reply brief. Issues not raised in the opening brief are deemed abandoned or waived. Bowdry v. United Airlines, 58 F.3d 1483, 1490 (10th Cir.1995) (refusing to address issue raised only in plaintiffs' reply brief). Whether B-G Maintenance had good cause to fire Ms. Coleman is irrelevant to her implied contract claim, an independent basis for the award of contract damages. For example, B-G Maintenance could have had good cause to fire Ms. Coleman, and still have breached its implied contract by failing to discharge Ms. Coleman according to its rules of progressive discipline. The jury concluded in a special verdict form that B-G Maintenance breached both its express contract and its implied contract--a conclusion we find supported by the record. Since the harm caused Ms. Coleman was the same under either breach--the loss of her job and the attendant income and benefits--the damages remain the same. We thus hold that the jury's verdict on Ms. Coleman's contract claim may stand, regardless of whether the instructions on termination for good cause had been tainted. See Williams v. United States Elevator Corp., 920 F.2d 1019, 1024 (D.C.Cir.1990) (holding that erroneous instructions on damages could not have influenced jury's negligence verdict, since the district court had employed a verdict form requiring special verdicts on the separate questions of negligence and damages); Jordan v. Campbell-Taggart, Inc., 1990 WL 51819, at  4 (4th Cir. Apr.17, 1990) (holding that state-law claim need not be retried by reason of taint from erroneous submission of federal claim; district court's use of special verdict form permitted court to affirm judgment on state law claim). 22 AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.