Opinion ID: 2516126
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Conflating Policy and Causation Elements

Text: Question Two on the special verdict form asked the jury: Was the violation of [Cash's] constitutional rights proximately caused by a custom, policy, or practice of the County of Erie? Defendants contend that they properly objected to this question when counsel stated: The problem I have with it is this is a combination that combines the liability and the causation in one question. Trial Tr. at 907. Counsel's statement, however, must be viewed in context, which was to urge substitution of defendants' own proposed version of Question Two: Did the County of Erie and Sheriff Patrick Gallivan by virtue of a policy or custom violate[] the plaintiff's constitutional rights? Id. As the district court recognized, the alternative formulation itself implicitly combined the policy and causation elements of Cash's municipal liability claim: I think that is essentially what [the court's proposed Question Two] says. Id. Defendants never clarified that they sought to have the policy and causation elements of a § 1983 claim put to the jury in two distinct questions. Certainly, they never presented the district court with proposed separate interrogatories. See generally Tuttle v. Equifax Check, 190 F.3d 9, 15-16 (2d Cir.1999) (holding objection to composite verdict form waived where plaintiff never asked that the district court prepare separate interrogatories for each prong and never objected to the charge on this ground). Accordingly, we conclude that defendants' objection was not stated with sufficient clarity to preserve it for appellate review. Even if we were to conclude otherwise, defendants cannot show that when Question Two is considered in light of the jury charge there was any confusion as to Cash's burden to prove both policy and causation. The district court made this clear when it identified policy and causation as distinct elements of the § 1983 claim. To satisfy the second element of the federal claim, the court instructed that Cash was required to prove that Deputy Hamilton's actions were the result of an official policy, practice or custom, which could be evidenced by a failure by policy makers to properly supervise their subordinates amounting to deliberate indifference to the rights of those who came in contact with municipal employees. Trial Tr. at 1009-10. Only after explaining plaintiff's burden to prove the existence of a policy did the court proceed to instruct the jury as to the third element of the federal claim, which required Cash to prove that defendants' policy was a proximate cause of the injuries sustained by the plaintiff. Id. at 1011. Even in the criminal context, we deem it within a trial court's discretion to frame the questions a jury must answer in terms that could be construed to combine elements, as long as the jury is properly instructed as to each fact that must be found. Cf. United States v. Quinones, 511 F.3d 289, 315 (2d Cir.2007). Because the district court satisfactorily instructed the jury as to the need to find both policy and causation proved, we identify no potential for juror confusion or abuse of discretion in Question Two. [8] Defendants' reliance on Vippolis v. Village of Haverstraw, 768 F.2d 40 (2d Cir.1985), is inapposite because the concern presented in that case  that the special verdict question did not in terms require the jury to find causation, id. at 45 n. 5  is not present here.