Opinion ID: 196426
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Breach of Contract and Damages

Text: 47 The Navons also argue that they are entitled to judgment or a new trial on the breach of contract claim because the evidence presented was insufficient to support a finding for Simon. The district court rejected the motion for new trial on this issue, concluding that the jury instructions properly and completely set out the relevant law and that the jurors presumably followed the instructions in reaching their verdict. Having read the trial transcript in its entirety, we find no abuse of discretion in the court's denial of a new trial on this issue. 48 Simon presented ample evidence that the Navons agreed toward the end of March 1992 to pay certain crucial creditors of MCTC promptly--a promise that a jury could find to be implicit in the written agreement of March 24th--but then failed to do so despite Simon's urgent pleas and the availability of adequate funds. Although the defendants presented a different version of events--laying the blame for the delinquencies on Simon for cancelling the IDB line of credit--the judgment between the conflicting accounts was for the jury to make. In addition, the jury was entitled to believe Simon's testimony that he did not retain MCTC's receivables and open the account at Camden National Bank until after the Navons breached an express provision of the March 24th agreement by paying themselves a total of $45,000 without his permission. As we have noted, our review at this stage is extremely deferential; whether or not we would have reached the same conclusion were the factual question ours to resolve in the first instance, we cannot say that the district court erred in allowing the jury's verdict to stand on the contract claim. 49 Nor may we on this record second-guess the district court's handling of the damages issue. Simon presented evidence, through an economist and multiple witnesses involved in the Maine Seafood industry, that MCTC's failure to pay its debts had a lasting financial impact on him. 15 Although the Navons now challenge as legal error certain premises upon which the economist, McCausland, relied, they neither objected to this testimony when it was presented nor argued at the close of the evidence that Simon had failed as a matter of law to prove breach of contract damages. 16 50 The district court nevertheless agreed that McCausland's testimony was flawed, that the jury's verdict accepting his view was against the weight of the evidence, and that a new trial on damages should be held unless Simon accepted a substantial remittitur. We think the court's response was appropriate and complete; it recognized both that Simon produced evidence of harm and that the jury's verdict improperly adopted his exaggerated claims regarding the extent of that harm. We find no abuse of discretion.