Opinion ID: 628038
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Malicious Prosecution Damages

Text: 31 Although the attack on the malicious prosecution award was just as untimely as the other motions, we conclude that our failure to address it would result in manifest injustice. We will therefore exercise our power to consider it. 32 The City contends that the $550,000 verdict against it on the malicious prosecution claim was excessive because under ancient notions of respondeat superior liability it could not be liable in any greater amount than the police officers whose misconduct occasioned the City's liability. It also contends that, because the officers were jointly and severally liable, a single award of $55,000 against all of them jointly and severally should have been made. The district court concluded that, by failing to object to the verdict sheets or to the charge, or to raise this issue in some other fashion before the case was submitted to the jury, the City waived this challenge. However, because the jury instructions accurately described the law as far as they went, because the verdict is so contrary to basic concepts of respondeat superior that it would be a miscarriage of justice to let it stand, and because the judgment entered on the verdict was inconsistent with New York state law of joint and several liability, we reject the waiver argument. 33 Malicious prosecution, by definition, is an intentional tort. See Bittner v. Cummings, 188 A.D.2d 504, 506, 591 N.Y.S.2d 429, 431 (2d Dep't 1992). Intentional tortfeasors, such as the officers here, are jointly and severally liable for the damages they cause when a plaintiff has suffered a single injury. See Ravo v. Rogatnick, 70 N.Y.2d 305, 312, 514 N.E.2d 1104, 1108, 520 N.Y.S.2d 533, 537 (1987); see also In re Seagroatt Floral Co., 78 N.Y.2d 439, 448, 583 N.E.2d 287, 292, 576 N.Y.S.2d 831, 836 (1991) (Joint and several liability ... imposes on each wrongdoer responsibility for the entire damages awarded, even though a particular wrongdoer's conduct may have caused only a portion of the loss.). The City's liability, in turn, was based on respondeat superior and, as such, was limited to the amount assessed against the officers. Pangburn v. Buick Motor Co., 211 N.Y. 228, 105 N.E. 423 (1914); accord Norwalk v. Air-Way Elec. Appliance Corp., 87 F.2d 317, 319 (2d Cir.1937) ([T]he liability of the master is derived from and is dependent upon the liability of the servant.). 34 The jury was never instructed on the issue of joint and several liability. The district court did give the following instruction with respect to respondeat superior liability: 35 Now, with respect to the City of Schenectady. If you should find that one or more of the defendants acted to maliciously prosecute the plaintiff as I've just defined it, you must then proceed to determine whether the City of Schenectady is also liable under that claim. I instruct you that an employer, such as the City of Schenectady, is liable for the wrongful acts of its employees that are done by the employee within the scope of that employee's employment. His job. Thus, if you should find that one or more of the individual defendants acted to maliciously prosecute the plaintiff, you must then consider whether such action was taken by the defendant within the scope of his duties as a police officer for the City of Schenectady. If you should so find that the action was taken within the scope of his duties, then you will find that the City of Schenectady is also liable for the claim of malicious prosecution. 36 Thus, the instructions, while accurate and unobjectionable as far as they went, never advised the jury of two crucial factors relating to the damage calculation and apportionment: (1) that because they were jointly and severally liable, different amounts of liability could not be allocated to the individual officers; and (2) because the City's liability was based on the doctrine of respondeat superior, it could not exceed, or be separate from, the officers' liability. 37 Without instruction on these important rules of damage calculation, the verdict form was an invitation to the jury to come up with an erroneous damage calculation. By placing separate entries next to each officer's name, the form suggested to the jury that it could assess separate damages against each of the defendants. As we stated in Aldrich v. Thomson McKinnon Sec., Inc., 756 F.2d 243, 248 (2d Cir.1985): 38 We reiterate, however, that this form of verdict should be avoided where defendants, if liable, are liable jointly and severally for a single injury. See Gagnon v. Ball, 696 F.2d 17, 19 n. 2 (2d Cir.1982). The jury should be asked, instead, what amount of damages the plaintiff has suffered. Damages in this amount can then be awarded, jointly and severally, against each defendant found liable. 39 In Gagnon, we noted the inadvisability of submitting interrogatories to the jury that explicitly invite[ ] [it] to answer separately as to each defendant the amount of compensatory damages to be recovered by the plaintiff. Gagnon, 696 F.2d at 19 n. 2. We advised instead that [w]here, as here, defendants, if liable at all, are liable for causing the same injury, a jury given special interrogatories should be asked what amount of damages the plaintiff has suffered and [a]ll defendants found liable for the injury are then jointly and severally liable for the single award of compensatory damages. Id. 40 While other factors in the Aldrich case led us to conclude that the verdict there could be reconciled fairly with joint and several liability, no such conclusion can be reached here. In Aldrich, the jury was confronted with only two defendants and no respondeat superior question; and those defendants had also been found liable for punitive damages (to which joint and several liability does not apply) in identical amounts. From this, we were able to assure ourselves that the jury intended that the damages allocated to each defendant should be added together, and the aggregate then entered as the judgment on the claim for which they were jointly and severally liable. Aldrich, 756 F.2d at 248. 41 Here, by contrast, four individual defendants were found liable, and while there were, as in Aldrich, separate entries of identical punitive damages on the claim, there was a separate problem with the verdict form--the City was listed along with the individual defendants without any explanation, even though the City could be held liable only vicariously. This induced the jury to allocate to the City a damage amount ten times greater than the liability assessed against each of the individual defendants and 2.5 times greater than the damages assessed against the officers collectively. Combining the joint and several liability confusion with the fact that the verdict is plainly inconsistent with the theory of respondeat superior, it is clear that we cannot let it stand. 42 Our inquiry does not end there, however. The City urges that we order damages reduced to $55,000 for which the individual officers should be held jointly and severally liable, with the City vicariously liable for only that amount. New York, whose law governs, applies the rule of de melioribus damnis to joint tortfeasors against whom the jury has assessed equal amounts of liability. See Farber v. Demino, 254 N.Y. 363, 365, 173 N.E. 223, 224 (1930). Under this rule, the $55,000 assessed against each defendant would be the entire verdict subject to joint and several liability and vicarious liability. 43 Imposing such a result would, however, be troubling under the circumstances of this case. In the damage interrogatories on Rodick's other claims, the jury assessed different amounts of damages against the individual officers. Accordingly, it is a reasonable inference that with respect to malicious prosecution, the jury may have intended that the officers be held separately, but equally, liable. If so, then the total damages that the jury intended for Rodick to recover from the officers on the malicious prosecution claim would have been $220,000. Moreover, because the jury was never told that the City's liability could not be assessed separately from that of the officers, and because it entered $550,000 as the damage amount against the City, it may very well have intended that Rodick receive $770,000. 44 Because we believe that appellate resolution of this question would require speculation as to the jury's intention, we remand for a new trial limited to the issue of damages for malicious prosecution. Accordingly, we do not reach the City's alternative argument that the malicious prosecution damages were excessive as a matter of law.