Opinion ID: 2458
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: New York Navigation Law

Text: Plaintiffs assert that the district court erred in denying their motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial on their New York Navigation Law claim for a petroleum discharge. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 50, 59. Where, as here, a jury has deliberated in a case and actually returned its verdict, a district court may set aside the verdict pursuant to Rule 50 only where there is such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury's findings could only have been the result of sheer surmise and conjecture, or there is such an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the movant that reasonable and fair minded men could not arrive at a verdict against him. Cross v. New York City Transit Auth., 417 F.3d 241, 248 (2d Cir.2005) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). Although we review the district court's denial of a Rule 50 motion de novo, we are bound by the same stern standards. Id. A district court may grant a new trial pursuant to Rule 59 even when there is evidence to support the jury's verdict, so long as the court determines that, in its independent judgment, the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result or its verdict is a miscarriage of justice. Nimely v. City of New York, 414 F.3d 381, 392 (2d Cir.2005) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). The standard for ordering a new trial is therefore somewhat less stern than that for entering judgment as a matter of law, but our review of a district court's disposition of a Rule 59 motion is more deferential, and we will not reverse except for abuse of discretion. Id. New York law holds [a]ny person who has discharged petroleum ... strictly liable, without regard to fault, for all cleanup and removal costs and all direct and indirect damages, no matter by whom sustained, as defined in this section. N.Y. Nav. Law § 181(1). Plaintiffs argue that there was not a scintilla of evidence to support the jury's finding that defendants did not discharge petroleum in the course of fighting the AMW fire. Appellants Br. at 66. The record is to the contrary. Notably, defendants' expert Andrew Barber testified that none of the data collected on the night of the fire indicated a release of petroleum. Indeed, Barber testified that a fire as large as the one at the AMW facility would likely have consumed any petroleum on the site. Barber further testified that the oil-soaked soil behind the AMW warehouse did not necessarily point to a petroleum release during the fire because that site involved a dry well that probably hadn't been cleaned out in some period of time. Trial Tr. at 2802. Similarly, Nick Acampora, a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation spill inspector who responded to the fire, testified that he did not recall seeing, nor did his contemporaneous notes mention, a petroleum sheen on any of the runoff water from the fire. Id. at 1775. He testified that observation of any such sheen would have been sufficiently important to include in his report. Janet Gremli, a Suffolk County Department of Health employee who responded to the fire, testified that she had no recollection of a petroleum sheen on any of the runoff water. Assuming as we must that this testimony was credited by the jury, it suffices to support a verdict in favor of defendants on the Navigation Law claim and the denial of plaintiffs' motion to enter judgment in their favor or to grant a new trial. In further support of their new trial motion on the Navigation Law claim, plaintiffs submit that they were denied a fair trial by defendants' display to the jury, during summation, of documents not in evidence purportedly supporting their argument that no petroleum was discharged. The district court specifically instructed the jury that the documents had not been received in evidence and were not to be considered during deliberations. The law recognizes a strong presumption that juries follow such limiting instructions unless there is an overwhelming probability of their inability to do so. See, e.g., United States v. Snype, 441 F.3d 119, 129-30 (2d Cir.2006) (collecting cases). This case poses no such probability. Although plaintiffs now complain that the court's instruction was deficient in various respects, because they voiced no such objection before the jury began its deliberations, our review is limited to fundamental error, and we identify none in this case. See SCS Commc'ns, Inc. v. Herrick Co., Inc., 360 F.3d at 343. Accordingly, we identify no merit in this part of plaintiffs' new trial argument.