Opinion ID: 792077
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Verdict Sheets.

Text: 33 With this background in mind, we turn to the original verdict sheet's treatment of the informed consent and battery claims. When the jury held that the doctors did not obtain Carol's consent in response to Question III(1), they were directed to determine whether this failure was a proximate cause of Chanel's injuries. Their affirmative response led them to assess damages. This was error disadvantaging the defendants because, in order to find for the plaintiff on an informed consent theory, the jury must also find that the procedure was invasive, that it was not required by emergency conditions, that the doctors failed to give appropriate advice, and that a reasonable person given appropriate advice would have consented. 34 Defense counsel pointed out the error to the jury, and the court rectified it in part, requiring the jury to answer parts 2, 3, and 4 of Question III. However, despite plaintiff's request, the district court did not ask the jury to answer the battery questions, which they had not reached because they found negligence in response to Question III. 35 This approach—resubmitting the informed consent claim, but not the battery claim—to the jury was disadvantageous to the infant plaintiff. The jury's initial finding that Drs. Takla and Lewis touched plaintiff without her consent suggests that it might have found for plaintiff on the battery claim had it not been advised that it could not find battery if it found a species of negligence (including failing to give the plaintiff appropriate information). 36 When answers to special interrogatories are consistent with each other but inconsistent with the general verdict, the court may either enter judgment in accordance with the interrogatories or return the issue to the jury for further consideration. Fed.R.Civ.P. 49(b). Rule 49(b) does not, however, authorize the court to enter judgment based on the general verdict despite answers to interrogatories that conflict with that verdict. When first directed to answer question III(2), the jury found that the procedure at hand was neither a non-emergency procedure nor an invasive diagnostic procedure precluding any informed consent recovery. New York Public Health Law § 2805-d. Nevertheless, the jury inconsistently awarded damages. Under Rule 49(b), the court had two options: (1) entering judgment in accordance with the interrogatories, or (2) seeking further clarification. The judge chose the second option. We believe this was the better choice because entry of judgment in favor of defendants without allowing the jury to consider the battery claim would have been a miscarriage of justice and thus an abuse of discretion. 37 However, Judge Johnson's second attempt to obtain clarification from the jury fared little better than his first. He explained to them that answering no for III(2) and then awarding damages was inconsistent. True enough, but another error lurked in the verdict sheet that may have led the jury to another inconsistent verdict. Immediately after III(4)—the question asking whether a reasonable person would have consented had she been properly advised of the risks and benefits of the procedures—the verdict sheet instructed the jurors to proceed to question III(5), proximate cause, if it answered yes. The proper direction, of course, would have been to proceed to question III(5) only if the jury answered III(4) no, III(3), no, and III(2), yes. However, following the directions on the verdict sheet, the jury answered III(4) yes, despite having reached the opposite conclusion in its prior deliberations; found proximate cause; and awarded plaintiff damages. 38 At that point, the second error in the verdict sheet should have prompted counsel to ask the court to obtain further clarification from the jury to cure the inconsistency. They did not do so. In addition, defendants, in making their post-verdict motions, relied on the inconsistency between the response the jury gave to interrogatory III(2)—when the issue was first submitted to them—and the general verdict but never addressed the inconsistency between III(4) and the general verdict. Nevertheless, the court's entry of judgment on the general verdict in the face of an interrogatory answer that mandated a contrary result was error. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 49(b). 39 Defendants' failure to point out the error in the verdict sheet that caused the jury to answer the proximate cause and damages question despite its finding, when the question was submitted to them for the third time, that a reasonable and appropriately informed person would have consented to the examinations waives their right to raise this inconsistency on appeal absent a showing of fundamental error. See Jarvis v. Ford Motor Co., 283 F.3d 33, 60-62 (2d Cir.2002). An error is fundamental only if it is so serious and flagrant that it goes to the very integrity of the trial or deprive[s] the jury of adequate legal guidance to reach a rational decision. Id. at 62. Section 2805-d clearly prohibits recovery if a reasonable and properly informed person would have consented, but the verdict sheet instead made such a reasonable person's consent a prerequisite to recovery. Thus, it misinformed the jurors in a critical way and undermined the integrity of the trial. We therefore find fundamental error, vacate the verdict, and remand for a new trial. 4 40