Opinion ID: 2323029
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Verdict FormGeneral versus Special Verdicts

Text: Courts have treated inconsistent civil jury verdicts in a variety of ways, partially dependent upon the particular procedure used to obtain the jury's findings. A civil verdict may be received in different ways: First, a general verdict may be received; second, a special verdict may be used; and third, a general verdict may be supplemented by special interrogatories, thereby combining features of a special verdict and a general verdict. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure explicitly address special verdicts and general verdicts with interrogatories. Rule 49(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governs the use of special verdicts in federal courts. [18] The Maryland Rules of Procedure also permit the court to pose specific questions to the jury, known as special verdicts. See Rule 2-522(c), derived from Federal Rule 49(a); Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Garrett, 343 Md. 500, 525, 682 A.2d 1143, 1155 (1996) (noting that Rule 2-522 gives trial judge authority to design submissions to the jury); Kruszewski v. Holz, 265 Md. 434, 446, 290 A.2d 534, 541 (1972) (noting that trial judge's authority to submit a case to the jury for a special verdict is conferred by rule). In returning a special verdict, the jury makes factual findings and the court applies the law to those facts as found by the jury. In addition, courts may present to the jury written interrogatories on issues of fact, the decision of which is necessary to the verdict, but still permit the jury to return a general verdict. With this procedure, elements of a special verdict and general verdict are employed at the same time. Verdicts are usually returned in the form of a general verdict in most courts. See Portage II v. Bryant Petroleum Corp., 899 F.2d 1514, 1519 (6th Cir.1990); Guidry v. Kem Mfg. Co., 598 F.2d 402, 405 (5th Cir.1979). The jury simply announces in whose favor it finds, and if for the plaintiff, in what amount. General verdicts provide little explanation for the decision, and thus, if a general verdict appears to be inconsistent, there is little basis to determine whether that verdict was the result of rational decision making, or if it was based on sympathy for one party, confusion, mistake, or nullification. It has been said of the general verdict that it is as inscrutable and essentially mysterious as the judgment which issued from the ancient oracle of Delphi. Skidmore v. Balt. & Ohio R.R. Co., 167 F.2d 54, 60 (2d Cir.1948) (Frank, J.). The jury plays a simple factfinding role when it renders a special verdict, whereas the jury applies the law to the facts and announces legal conclusions when it renders a general verdict. As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals explained in Zhang: A jury may return multiple general verdicts as to each claim, and each party, in a lawsuit, without undermining the general nature of its verdicts. Although some general verdicts are more general than others, encompassing multiple claims, the key is not the number of questions on the verdict form, but whether the jury announces the ultimate legal result of each claim. If the jury announces only its ultimate conclusions, it returns an ordinary general verdict; if it makes factual findings in addition to the ultimate legal conclusions, it returns a general verdict with interrogatories. If it returns only factual findings, leaving the court to determine the ultimate legal result, it returns a special verdict. Zhang, 339 F.3d at 1031 (citation omitted). The Zhang court further explained that the form of a verdict has important implications for determining whether verdicts are irreconcilably inconsistent. Id. In addressing the alleged inconsistency between two legal conclusionsa finding of liability for a corporate defendant and a finding of no liability for the corporation's employee, the court in Zhang distinguished this inquiry from its task in reviewing whether special verdict answers support the ultimate judgment of the trial court. Id. at 1032-33. In cases involving the latter inquiry, the real question [is] whether the jury's factual findings require[] judgment for the plaintiff or the defendant, a question that is simply irrelevant where ... no factual findings are at issue. Id. at 1033. In S & R v. Nails, 85 Md.App. 570, 584 A.2d 722 (1991), rev'd on other grounds, 334 Md. 398, 639 A.2d 660 (1994), the Court of Special Appeals considered whether a special verdict could be reconciled with a general verdict. The court pointed out that a special verdict and a general verdict are irreconcilably defective where the answer to one of the questions in a special verdict form would require a [general] verdict in favor of the plaintiff and an answer to another would require a [general] verdict in favor of the defendant. Id. at 590, 584 A.2d at 731. Because S & R dealt with the consistency of a factual finding and a legal conclusion, that case, contrary to the majority's assertion, does not stand for the broad proposition that apparently inconsistent civil jury verdicts are necessarily defective. The majority improperly characterizes the jury verdict in the instant case as a special verdict. See maj. op. at 637 (referring to the text of the special verdict form). The verdict in the instant case is a general verdict, not a special verdict. The jury merely determined whether each of the three defendants was liable. Unlike the verdicts in S & R , the verdict in this case was not irreconcilably inconsistent because the jury made no factual findings that required judgment for Southern Management. The cases cited by the majority involving the doctrine of respondeat superior do not establish that the jury's exoneration of an employee can never be consistent with a verdict of liability for the corporate defendant. The cases cited by the majority involve situations where corporate liability was based solely on the doctrine of respondeat superior and only one employee's actions grounded the claim. See maj. op. at 643. Zhang is more instructive regarding the interplay of the doctrine of respondeat superior with apparently inconsistent general verdicts. In Zhang, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals contemplated that general verdicts might be alleged to be inconsistent in three ways. 339 F.3d at 1032. Two of those ways include situations in which the jury returns a general verdict that, under the facts of the case, implies a lack of evidence underlying another general verdict or the jury returns two general verdicts that, under any facts, seem to be legally irreconcilable. Id. The court categorized the split verdict between the corporate defendant and the employee as the former scenario because it is legally possible for a corporation to be held liable for discrimination while its agent is exonerated (because, among other reasons, the corporation may have acted through other agents). Id. Although Southern Management raises the question of whether, as a matter of law, the jury verdict was irreconcilably inconsistent, underlying its claim of inconsistency is a presumption that Taha failed to produce sufficient evidence of tortious conduct by employees other than Wylie-Forth and McGovern. As the Court of Special Appeals phrased it in Taha I, 137 Md.App. at 721, 769 A.2d at 976, [a]ppellant explains that, based on well-established principles of respondeat superior, Southern, as principal, cannot be liable here, because the two employee-defendants were found not culpable, and the evidence did not show that any other corporate employees committed the tort (emphasis in original). The court went on to conclude that the verdict of liability against Southern cannot stand, given the jury's exoneration of the two individual employees, if the claim against Southern was based solely on the conduct of those two individuals. Id. at 724, 769 A.2d at 978 (emphasis in original). The majority in the instant case states that the gravamen of the case was limited to the two named employees, maj. op. at 641, and embraces the Court of Special Appeals' pronouncement that Taha proceeded against Southern for the tort of malicious prosecution based only on the conduct of McGovern or Wylie-Forth, not other Southern employees who were not sued. [19] Taha I, 137 Md.App. at 728, 769 A.2d at 980 (emphasis added). The majority further intimates that a jury could not have found that Southern Management employees other than the two who were sued were acting within the scope of their employment. Maj. op. at 641. This is pure conjecture. Whether an individual's conduct falls within the scope of employment is within the province of the jury. Sawyer v. Humphries, 322 Md. 247, 260-61, 587 A.2d 467, 473-74 (1991). If Southern Management believed that there was insufficient evidence of these facts, or any other facts, it should have raised its concerns at the close of the evidence and before the jury retired to deliberate. [20] In denying the motion j.n.o.v., the trial judge found that there was sufficient evidence in the record from which the jury could have arrived at its verdict. The United States Supreme Court has held that where a jury renders apparently inconsistent verdicts, it is the court's duty to search for a logical interpretation of those verdicts. The Court addressed this issue in Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, 369 U.S. 355, 82 S.Ct. 780, 7 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962), in which a plaintiff longshoreman brought suit against shipowners, and the defendant shipowners impleaded plaintiff's employer, a stevedoring contractor. Id. at 357, 82 S.Ct. at 782, 7 L.Ed.2d at 802. Plaintiff was injured when two bands holding bales of burlap broke while the plaintiff was unloading the bales on defendants' ship. Id. at 356, 82 S.Ct. at 782, 7 L.Ed.2d at 802. The jury found the shipowners liable for the plaintiff's injuries under theories of negligence and unseaworthiness, and found the stevedoring company not liable, id. at 357, 82 S.Ct. at 782, 7 L.Ed.2d at 802, even though the stevedoring company owed contractual duties to the shipowners much like a manufacturer's warranty of its product, id. at 359 n.1, 82 S.Ct. at 783 n. 1, 7 L.Ed.2d at 803 n. 1. The Court held that the jury's verdict was not logically inconsistent because the jury may have found that the shipowners were negligent in failing to inspect the bands on the bale that fella duty not subsumed under the stevedoring company's contractual obligations to the shipowners. Id. at 364, 82 S.Ct. at 786, 7 L.Ed.2d at 806-07. The Court announced that [w]here there is a view of the case that makes the jury's answers to special interrogatories consistent, they must be resolved that way. Id. at 364, 82 S.Ct. at 786, 7 L.Ed.2d at 807. See also Gallick v. Balt. & Ohio R.R. Co., 372 U.S. 108, 119, 83 S.Ct. 659, 666, 9 L.Ed.2d 618, 627 (1963) (noting that courts must attempt to harmonize the [jury's] answers when faced with apparently inconsistent verdicts); Zhang, 339 F.3d at 1038 (quoting Gallick and Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. and stating that litigants challenging apparently inconsistent verdicts bear a high burden to establish an irreconcilable inconsistency). The general verdicts in the instant case are not irreconcilably inconsistent or defective. The trial court properly denied Southern Management post-judgment relief partly because the court found that there was evidence to support a verdict of corporate liability even if the employees who had been sued were found not liable. The fact that the jury concluded that two of Southern Management's employees were not liable for malicious prosecution does not compel the conclusion that Southern Management, as a matter of law, cannot be held liable.