Opinion ID: 1393548
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The trial court's failure to answer a jury question in open court

Text: Appellant urges that this court's prior decision, Rissler & McMurry v. Snodgrass, 854 P.2d 69 (Wyo.1993), makes failure of the trial court to answer questions from the jury in open court plain error mandat[ing] a new trial. The scope of Rissler must be defined by the facts of that case. Rissler involved an eminent domain action. During jury deliberations, the jury in Rissler sent a note to the trial court. Neither the jury's note to the court nor the trial court's response were made of record. Jurymen's affidavits made after the fact stated that the jury's note requested an instruction on whether they could fix their own value (damages) or were bound to accept a value fixed by a witness. The jury's verdict was returned in the amount of $182,034 for 5.45 acres of land taken for a mine haul road across pasture land. The Rissler opinion found plain error had been committed in the trial court's failure (1) to return the jury to open court for instruction [WYO.STAT. § 1-11-209 (1988)], and (2) to make the jury instruction part of the record [WYO.STAT. § 1-11-205(a)(vii) (1988)]. Although not fully developed in the opinion, Rissler involved prejudice to the appellant as a result of that error, and therefore, the case was remanded for a new trial. The facts here are substantially different from Rissler. The question from the jury, as well as the trial court's answer, appear of record. Counsel for both parties discussed the answer to the jury's question with the court, and together formulated an answer to which both counsel consented. NGP has failed to show any prejudice by the trial court's failure to answer the jury question in open court. WYO.R.APP.P. 9.04. We have searched this record and find no error that, to leave uncorrected, would cause a miscarriage of justice or result in damage to the integrity, reputation, and fairness of the judicial process [ Abdullah v. Gunter, 242 Neb. 854, 497 N.W.2d 12, 15 (1993)]; neither are we convinced that the claimed error possessed a clear capacity to bring about an unjust result. Gluckauf v. Pine Lake Beach Club, Inc., 78 N.J.Super. 8, 187 A.2d 357, 366 (1963). We do not interpret Rissler as obviating the need for the harmless error doctrine. Since NGP was not prejudiced, any potential error is harmless.