Opinion ID: 198062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Separability of issues on remand

Text: Wilson requests that, if the case must be remanded because of an error in the instructions, the remand be limited to issues of liability. The defendants, on the other hand, contend that they are entitled to a new trial on all issues, including damages. An appellate court has broad discretion to remand for a new trial on all, or only some, of the issues in the case. Dopp v. HTP Corp., 947 F.2d 506, 518 (1st Cir. 1991); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(a). Normally, an order remanding a case for a new trial should encompass all of the issues in the case, unless it clearly appears that the issue to be retried is so distinct and separable from the others that a trial of it alone may be had without injustice. Gasoline Prods. Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., 283 U.S. 494, 499-500 (1934). The decision to remand a case for a new trial on fewer than all of the issues thus depends not only upon a finding that the issues are logically distinct, but also upon considerations of equity and practicality. The question whether a plaintiff has suffered certain damages does not generally depend, as a matter of law, on whether that plaintiff is legally entitled to compensation for those damages.In this case, for example, the amount of future income that Wilson may have lost as a result of his injuries is independent of his legal claim to receive full, partial, or no compensation for such damages. In this regard, comparative negligence is regarded as a liability concept. La Plante v. American Honda Motor Co., 27 F.3d 731, 738 (1st Cir. 1994). We have held that the issues of liability, including issues of comparative negligence, were in certain cases so distinct and separable from the damages issue[s] that a partial trial of the former [could] be had without injustice. Id.; see also Winn v. Lafayette Town House, 839 F.2d 835, 836-37 (1st Cir. 1988); Calaf v. Fernndez, 239 F. 795, 799 (1st Cir. 1917). In La Plante, for example, we found particularly compelling the fact that the trial judge submitted detailed interrogatories to the jury, [so that] we [knew] the jury's total damage award to the plaintiff, as well as the amount discounted due to comparative negligence. 27 F.3d at 738. Thus, on remand, if the comparative negligence figures [were] changed as a result of the new trial, the total damage award [could] be adjusted accordingly. Id. In theory, the amount awarded by a jury in the form of compensatory damages should not be influenced by the jury's findings as to liability. Sometimes, however, the possibility may arise that the jury's special verdicts on damages might have encompassed some undisclosed compromise. For example, a jury could raise the amount of damages awarded if the jurors perceive the plaintiff to be particularly deserving of their solicitude, or the defendant particularly deserving of their opprobrium. The likelihood of this possibility occurring may increase when, as here, the jury is given no instruction at all on comparative negligence. In such cases, it might happen that a jury could understand the judge's decision not to instruct on comparative negligence as an implicit indication that there was not enough evidence of the plaintiff's contributory negligence to even submit the question to them. It is not unimaginable for a jury to infer from the fact that there was no instruction on comparative negligence that the award of damages should be increased as an additional sanction. In the end, our decision as to the scope of our remand order is a matter of judgment. In this particular case, because of the possibility that the jury might have been led by the lack of an instruction on comparative negligence to increase the total award of damages, and out of an abundance of caution, we order a retrial of all issues in this case, including damages.