Opinion ID: 786794
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Kerman's Entitlement to Correction of the Judgment

Text: 124 The April 23, 2002 judgment entered by the district court after the jury returned its verdict dismissed all of Kerman's claims. The court ruled in Kerman III that Kerman's Rule 60 motion, seeking correction of the judgment to reflect that he prevailed on his Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful seizure and his state-law claims for false imprisonment, had merit despite a possible inconsistency in the jury's answers to the interrogatories. We agree. 125 With respect to those claims, the jury had been instructed that it should not find Crossan liable for Kerman's injuries unless it found that Crossan acted without probable cause and proximately caused the injuries to which Kerman testified. The jury found that Crossan had detained Kerman and ordered him taken to the hospital without probable cause but that Kerman had not proven that that unlawful conduct was the proximate cause of his claimed injuries. The jury nonetheless concluded that Kerman should be awarded nominal damages. Because the jury had been instructed that it should not reach the issue of damages unless it found that Kerman had established Crossan's liability, there appeared to be some tension between its finding that Kerman had not shown proximate cause and its finding that he was entitled to nominal damages. Where there appears to be an inconsistency between the jury's interrogatory answers, [i]t is the duty of the district court to reconcile the jury's general verdict and its interrogatory responses if reasonable reconciliation is possible. 9A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2513, at 229 (2d ed.1995). Such a reconciliation may take into account a perhaps-flawed aspect of the instructions that the jury may have followed. See, e.g., Abou-Khadra v. Mahshie, 4 F.3d 1071, 1078 (2d Cir.1993). Given the parties' Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, [w]here there is a view of the case that makes the jury's answers to special interrogatories consistent, they must be resolved that way. Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U.S. 355, 364, 82 S.Ct. 780, 7 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962); see, e.g., Schaafsma v. Morin Vermont Corp., 802 F.2d 629, 634-35 (2d Cir.1986). 126 Applying this principle, the district court properly reconciled any apparent inconsistency between the jury's finding that Kerman was entitled to nominal damages and its finding that Crossan's conduct did not proximately cause Kerman injury. The court had instructed the jury on the need to find proximate cause only in the context of the court's discussion of compensatory damages ( see Tr. 759-60), and in that category of damages the court had referred only to medical expenses, physical pain and suffering, and emotional and mental anguish (Tr. 760-61). As to nominal damages, in contrast, the court instructed that the jury could make such an award if it found that, other than the deprivation of a legal right, Kerman had suffered no actual damages (Tr. 761), presumably referring to the medical expenses, pain and suffering, and emotional distress for which the court had instructed that Kerman might recover compensatory damages. 127 In reconciling the jury's answers, the court reasoned that the jury had found a violation of Kerman's rights but simply had found that ... Plaintiff had suffered no actual damages; and, citing Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978), the court concluded that Kerman was entitled to an award of nominal damages because he had established that Crossan's conduct violated his constitutional rights. See Kerman III, 2003 WL 328297, at  (internal quotation marks omitted). In light of the instructions, the district court properly ruled that the jury's interrogatory answers were consistent. And in light of an individual's right to be free of official physical restraint in the absence of probable cause, the district court correctly concluded that, on the basis of the jury's findings, Kerman had prevailed on his Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful seizure and his state-law claims for false imprisonment. 128