Opinion ID: 2614504
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial Court Erred by Denying the Fancyboys' Motion for a New Trial.

Text: After the court instructed the jury to redeliberate, the jury continued to award only property damages and the stipulated medical expenses even though AVEC never disputed the Fancyboys' showing of non-economic harm. Upon return of this verdict, the trial court commented that the verdict was not particularly a logical verdict. But based on its retrospective conclusion that the first verdict was consistent, the trial court refused to grant a new trial. [28] The Fancyboys argue that the trial court should have granted a new trial because the second verdict was inconsistent in its exclusion of non-economic damages. AVEC first contends that the Fancyboys waived their right to challenge the consistency of the second verdict because the Fancyboys did not make an additional objection to inconsistency upon return of the second verdict. To preserve an inconsistency objection, the party must have asked for resubmission of the issue prior to the discharge of the jury. [29] As the Fancyboys point out, they made two separate objections after the first verdict: They objected to both the jury's failure to include the stipulated medical expenses and its failure to include any non-economic damages. The court instructed the jury that it must consider stipulated medical damages but declined to address the issue of the jury's failure to award non-economic damages: I think there are two problems. One of which is a problem for a different day. This remark suggests that the court viewed the jury's failure to award non-economic damages as a problem with the adequacy of the verdict, rather than an inconsistency that required an immediate cure. By phrasing the issues in this way, the court effectively represented to the Fancyboys that they had preserved their objection to the failure to award non-economic damages. Because the Fancyboys could have reasonably relied on that representation, we conclude that they did not need to make the same objection to inconsistency after the second verdict. We now turn to the consistency of the second verdict. As we discussed with respect to the first verdict, in light of the jury's determination that the fire was electrical in origin, Raymond's failure to wake up during the fire to supervise the children was a foreseeable result of AVEC's negligence. Thus, although Raymond's negligence may have been an intervening cause of the Fancyboys' injuries, it could not have been a superseding cause. Accordingly, AVEC is liable for its proportionate share of all resulting damages, whether economic or non-economic. We see no principled way for the jury to have awarded damages for property loss and medical expenses but not non-economic damages to compensate the Fancyboys for their painful burns and their loss of consortium due to Willie's death. Because the second verdict was inconsistent, a new trial is indeed required in the interest of justice pursuant to Alaska Civil Rule 59(a). The Fancyboys also ask us to direct the trial court on remand to limit the new trial to the issue of damages. At the end of the trial, the trial court suggested that any new trial would require resubmission of all issues to the jury. The question of [w]hat issues are to be relitigated upon remand, in the absence of a directive from this court, is within the discretion of the trial court. [30] Whether the issues [of liability and damages] are sufficiently separable to warrant a partial new trial depends on the facts and circumstances of each case. [31] In comparative negligence cases, we have upheld trial court decisions granting a partial new trial on the issue of liability alone, [32] the issue of damages alone, [33] and a full trial on both the liability and damages issues. [34] Given the broad discretion that we afford trial courts on this matter, we leave it to the superior court to determine whether a new trial on all issues will be necessary.