Opinion ID: 3049898
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Opening Jury Instructions

Text: [9] Facts found by first jury. We reject Ford’s challenge to statements made by the district court during its opening jury instructions. The court did not abuse its discretion by telling the jury to assume as true that: (1) Mr. White had put the truck in gear and set the parking brake; (2) the brake failed to hold; and (3) that Ford knew the parking brake was prone to failure, but continued to sell it without recalling it or warning customers. In White I, this court “assume[d] that the jury believed Mr. White’s recollection” of the facts, including that he engaged the parking brake and that it was prone to failure but that Ford continued to use it. See White I, 312 F.3d at 1002; see also id. at 1008 (“If Mr. White’s testimony was correct, and we must assume that the jury so found . . . .”). In a typical civil trial, a summary of facts would be unnecessary because the same jury would decide both compensatory and punitive damages. The district court’s decision to familiarize the second jury with facts previously relied on, and implicitly affirmed, by this court was not an abuse of discretion. [10] Similarly, the district court did not abuse its discretion by telling the jury that this court “upheld” the first jury’s liability findings. White I affirmed the first jury’s compensatory and punitive liability determinations and remanded only on the amount of punitive damages. See id. at 1006, 1012, 1020. The district court did not abuse its discretion by reciting the law of the case. [11] Omissions from opening jury instructions. Ford also challenges certain omissions from the court’s opening instructions. We agree with Ford that the district court should have mentioned the previous jury’s finding that the brake defect 11014 WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. did not proximately cause the accident. The punitive damages award was supposed to be based only on Ford’s failure to warn, given the first jury’s finding that the defect was not a proximate cause of the accident. Of course, the jury needed to know about the brake defect to understand why Ford’s failure to warn caused the accident. As we explained in White I, Jimmie White “testified that, had he known that the brake could let go despite being set, he wouldn’t have parked the truck on a slope.” Id. at 1006. But by failing to inform the jury that the defect was not the proximate cause of the accident, the jury may not have been focused properly on the conduct actually found culpable by the first jury. Accordingly, on remand, the district court should inform the jury of the first jury’s finding and instruct that punitive damages, if awarded, are to punish the “reprehensibility of [Ford’s]” failure to warn. See Nev. J.I. 10.20. [12] The district court also should have disclosed that the Whites were found to be 40 percent responsible for the accident. To be sure, the overwhelming weight of authority suggests that Ford cannot offer evidence of the Whites’ comparative negligence to offset the punitive damages award. See Clark v. Cantrell, 504 S.E.2d 605, 610 n.5 (S.C. Ct. App. 1998) (reviewing 16 reported opinions and identifying only one that allowed punitive damages to be reduced in accordance with comparative fault). Nonetheless, Nevada law required the jury to consider — in arriving at a punitive damages award — “the reprehensibility of [Ford’s] conduct,” Nev. J.I. 10.20, and reprehensibility is judged in relation to the conduct and actions of others, not merely by looking at Ford’s conduct in the abstract. We assess blame for tortious conduct in relation to other contributory causes. Likewise, criminal acts may result in lesser punishments when the actor is not wholly responsible for the harm. This is true even for extremely blameworthy cases, such as capital defendants being permitted to show mitigating circumstances caused by others in order to reduce their punishments. See, e.g., Summerlin v. Schriro, 427 F.3d 623, 642 (9th Cir. 2005) (en WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. 11015 banc). Thus, in determining punitive damages, the jury should be able to consider Ford’s level of responsibility, as it bears directly on “the reprehensibility of [its] conduct.” Nev. J.I. 10.20. The district court should therefore instruct the jury that Ford was only 60 percent responsible for the accident, and plaintiffs bore the remaining 40 percent of the blame.