Opinion ID: 1692668
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Additur.

Text: Bangs claims the jurors erroneously omitted the medical expenses because they thought they had been paid by a third party. According to Bangs, the proper remedy is an additur. Pioneer responds that Bangs' third-party theory is no more plausible than Pioneer's own theory, which was that the jury compromised liability by reducing the damages. Pioneer claims that the appropriate remedy is a new trial. The court found as a matter of law that Bangs' medical expenses were proximately caused by her fall and that the jury's special verdict awarding no medical expenses was contrary to the undisputed evidence. The court accepted Bangs' theory that the reason for the omission of medical expenses was the jury's belief that Bangs' medical expenses had already been paid by K-Mart. The court was concerned that K-Mart would seek indemnity against Bangs' recovery of its medical expense payments and that Bangs would therefore be required to reimburse K-Mart for medical expenses that she had not received under the verdict. The court stated: Neither Ms. Bangs nor Pioneer was able to inform the Court with any certainty as to the position K-Mart intended to take concerning indemnification. If K-Mart ultimately seeks and obtains indemnification from the proceeds of this action, injustice would result if the award of damages in this case was not increased to include the undisputed medical expenses. If, however, K-Mart inexplicably elects not to enforce its right of indemnification, no harm would be done by leaving the present Special Verdict intact. A just result cannot be obtained on the issue of medical expenses until the intentions of K-Mart are clear. K-Mart filed notice of its intention to pursue indemnity against Bangs' recovery, and the court ordered the additur. Pioneer complains that there is no evidence in the record to support the court's conclusion regarding the reason for the omission. The only proffered evidence that bore on this issue was an affidavit by an attorney for Pioneer who stated that a juror had told him that it was the feeling of the jury that most likely those expenses had been paid and, therefore, they awarded nothing. This affidavit was presented by Pioneer to support its motion for a new trial. The court held the affidavit to be inadmissible under Iowa Rule of Evidence 606(b) and denied Pioneer's motion for new trial. Rule 606(b) provides: Upon an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations or to the effect of anything upon his or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing him to assent to or dissent from the verdict or indictment or concerning his mental processes in connection therewith, except that a juror may testify on the question whether extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury's attention or whether any outside influence was improperly brought to bear upon any juror. We believe the court correctly ruled the affidavit to be inadmissible on the new-trial issue, but we believe the affidavit should also have been disregarded on the issue of the additur. The affidavit clearly dealt with a matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury's deliberations or to the effect of anything upon his or any other juror's mind or emotions as influencing him and therefore was inadmissible under rule of evidence 606(b). Because there was no admissible evidence tending to support the court's finding, we conclude that it was improper to order the additur on the assumption that the jury erroneously considered third-party payments. If a verdict is internally inconsistent, as this one was, and there is no way to determine the jury's intent, the proper remedy is a new trial. Cowan v. Flannery, 461 N.W.2d 155, 160 (Iowa 1990); Hoffman v. National Med. Enters., Inc., 442 N.W.2d 123, 127 (Iowa 1989). We hold that a new trial is the appropriate remedy.