Opinion ID: 515444
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the appeal from the verdict

Text: 17 On their first appeal, plaintiffs argue that they deserve a new trial because the district court improperly foreclosed jury consideration of various legal theorems. We find it unnecessary to reach all of plaintiffs' substantive points, however, because the jury's answers to the special interrogatory, combined with the factual findings supportably made by the district judge under Fed.R.Civ.P. 49(a), fully disposed of plaintiffs' claims against Beatrice. Error as to peripheral matters--and we do not suggest that any occurred--was therefore harmless. 18 We approach this facet of our inquiry by looking to Fed.R.Civ.P. 49(a), see supra note 3, and to the standard of review applicable to the district court's findings thereunder. We then examine the findings and assess their legal adequacy and effect. 19
20 At common law, special verdicts could not support a judgment unless the jury made findings of fact on every material issue in the case. E.g., Graham v. Bayne, 59 U.S. (18 How.) 60, 63, 15 L.Ed. 265 (1855). Waiver was not presumed: omission from the interrogatories of a fact necessary to support the judgment--even if the fact had been conceded--constituted grounds for reversal. See Hodges v. Easton, 106 U.S. (16 Otto) 408, 412, 1 S.Ct. 307 (1883); see also 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 2507 (1971). These barriers marked a thinly-veiled distrust of jury interrogatories and deprived special verdicts of many of their natural advantages. Consequently, end-of-trial interrogatories were seldom seen. 21 The adoption of the Civil Rules put an end to this desuetude. Rule 49 recognized the value of the special verdict, judiciously employed. At the rule's core lay the policy of honoring special verdicts rendered upon agreed questions. In contrast to former practice, Rule 49 put[ ] the burden of securing a jury verdict on all of the issues squarely on the parties. Id. at 505. Efficacious use of the new modality demanded, of course, that the nisi prius court be permitted to make interstitial findings of fact. To this end, Rule 49(a) ensures that, if the submitted questions omit any material issue of fact, the district court may itself make a finding (or, if it fails to do so, shall be deemed to have made a finding) consistent with the judgment entered pursuant to the special verdict. See Graphic Products Distributors, Inc. v. ITEK Corp., 717 F.2d 1560, 1569 (11th Cir.1983); Guidry v. Kem Manufacturing Co., 598 F.2d 402, 406 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 929, 100 S.Ct. 1318, 63 L.Ed.2d 763 (1980). The net result is that the rule invests the trial judge with extensive powers to resolve issues which should have been--but were not--covered by the interrogatories. See, e.g., Goeken v. Kay, 751 F.2d 469, 474 (1st Cir.1985) (in contract case, Rule 49(a) allowed district court to determine nature of contract for purpose of statute of frauds, where issue was omitted from jury interrogatories); Brenham v. Southern Pacific Company, 328 F.Supp. 119, 123 (W.D.La.1971) (where negligence submitted to jury, but not proximate cause, district court could find causation, using Rule 49(a)), aff'd, 409 F.2d 1095 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1061, 93 S.Ct. 560, 34 L.Ed.2d 513 (1972); Diffenderfer v. Heublein, Inc., 285 F.Supp. 9, 11 (D.Minn.1968) (district court could make findings on omitted issues in contract action, including waiver, duress, ratification, and applicability of statute of frauds), aff'd, 412 F.2d 184 (8th Cir.1969). By the time this litigation loomed on the horizon, the wisdom of the ancient maxim oportet quod certa res deducatur in judicium  had gained widespread appreciation; jury interrogatories had become a frequently-used tool, much valued in the bargain; and the power of federal district judges to make supplementary findings of fact on omitted issues in Rule 49(a) cases was accepted as a necessary adjunct of the process. 22
23 The type of oversight which pertains to a trial judge's Rule 49(a) findings has not been stated definitively in this circuit. See Goeken v. Kay, 751 F.2d at 472; cf. Payton v. Abbott Labs, 780 F.2d 147, 154 (1st Cir.1985) (district court's finding under Rule 49(a) reversed as clearly erroneous without discussion of standard). This appeal, we believe, requires us to select an approach. 24 The problem has two aspects. In the first place, questions such as whether a particular fact was omitted, or if omitted, was material to the submitted issue, are legal in nature and call for plenary review. Cf. United States v. Rodriguez, 858 F.2d 809, 812 (1st Cir.1988) (adopting plenary standard of appellate review to determination of whether evidence supports request for charge). But once such threshold matters are resolved, a different test is needed. Where, as in this case, a material fact was indeed omitted, the judge must indulge in differential factfinding in an environment dominated by the text of Rule 49. The right to have a jury find the further facts is not snatched from unsuspecting litigants. To the contrary, the rule clearly admonishes parties that jury trial will be waived as to any issues not submitted. Jury access is lost only through a party's failure seasonably to have demanded submission of an omitted issue, that is, when a litigant acquiesces in an omission or neglects to object to the verdict form at a time when error may be easily corrected. See, e.g., Reo Industries, Inc. v. Pangaea Resource Corp., 800 F.2d 498, 500 (5th Cir.1986); Cote v. Estate of Butler, 518 F.2d 157, 160 (2d Cir.1975). Consequently, there is every reason to treat the district court's Rule 49 findings of fact in the same manner as findings of fact made after a bench trial, reviewable under the clearly erroneous standard of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). We so hold. Accord J.C. Motor Lines, Inc. v. Trailways Bus System, 689 F.2d 599, 602 (5th Cir.1982). This means, in turn, that: 25 If the district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. 26 Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-12, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985).C. The District Court's Findings. 27 In this case, the district court made post-verdict findings on an omitted issue. In the court's words: 28 The plaintiffs argue that [judgment should not enter for Beatrice because] a pertinent issue of fact was omitted from the interrogatories to the jury, namely, whether any of the contaminating chemicals from the Beatrice site reached the wells.... 29 I find that it has not been established by a preponderance of the evidence that any contaminant from the Beatrice site reached the wells. [Plaintiff's evidence] was seriously flawed in this respect by [the expert's] failure to account for loss of water from the river during pumping. I accept [another expert's] testimony that the gradient differentials were too insubstantial to form the basis of an opinion. Under the rules placing the burden of proof on the plaintiffs, I am obliged to find against the plaintiffs on this point. 30 Anderson IV, slip op. at 7 (emphasis supplied). This finding, if supportable, ends plaintiffs' case against Beatrice. To explain, we turn first to the propriety of the paralipomena. In so doing, we consider whether a material issue was omitted from the jury interrogatories, and, if so, whether appellants acquiesced in the omission. Because we find such an oversight occurred, we treat with its significance. Next, we scrutinize the underpinnings of the district court's Rule 49(a) findings. Finally, we assess the effect of the findings on the balance of plaintiffs' case. 31 1. Omission of the Flowage Issue. Groundwater movement was a major topic of the trial. Yet the interrogatories did not ask the jury to make specific factual findings as to the direction of flow. Rather, the first interrogatory--the only one germane to this inquiry--addressed two other points: (1) whether there had been disposal of complaint chemicals on the 15 acres after 1968; and (2) whether complaint chemicals had travelled from there to wells G and H. See supra at 914. Submission of the latter issue would ordinarily have required the jury to make a determination on groundwater flow. But because of the compound and conjunctive nature of the question, the jury's negative answers--there were four, one for each of the complaint chemicals--were arguably ambiguous. The responses could be read to mean either that there had been no disposal after 1968, or that no chemicals had travelled to the wells. And there was yet a third possibility: the no answers could have meant that the jury felt both prongs of the interrogatory remained unproven. In light of this unmistakable potential for amphiboly, the issue of groundwater flow was seemingly omitted from the special verdict within the meaning of Rule 49(a). 32 Appellants tell us that the issue cannot be deemed omitted because the district court exceeded its power by resolving a question on which appellants had not waived their right to jury trial, viz., the question of whether contamination was caused by disposal of complaint chemicals on the 15-acre site before August, 1968. Plaintiffs are correct, in part. The issue of pre-1968 pollution had been removed from the jury's consideration by the directed verdict, see supra at 914, and was preserved for appeal by proper objection in that context. Inasmuch as the omission of pre-1968 pollution from the interrogatory stemmed from that ruling, no waiver can be charged to plaintiffs' account on that score. Our inquiry, then, must proceed along a narrow track: if plaintiffs acquiesced in the omission of the flowage issue from the interrogatory, the court below was entitled to find the facts anent groundwater dynamics, cf. Goeken v. Kay, 751 F.2d at 474, but not to resolve the issue of pre-1968 pollution. 33 2. Acquiescence. That there was acquiescence is beyond peradventure. The phrasing of the interrogatory was debated extensively at the 3-day charge conference. The court offered a draft interrogatory which, like the one finally adopted, wrapped the issues of disposal and travel into a unitary package. Beatrice's counsel opposed this formulation, arguing that it was drafted in a way ... that creates more confusion for the jury. Trial Transcript (T) 75:24. He suggested breaking out post-1968 disposal as a separate question, id. at 25-26, and pointed out that the proposed interrogatory was compound. Id. at 27. Plaintiffs, though aware of the question's obvious importance, objected to appellee's suggested revisions, told the judge that the question was fine the way it is phrased, T. 75:26, and encouraged the court to adopt it in precisely the form submitted to the jury. This, we think, was not merely passive acquiescence (though that would be enough); appellants' actions amounted to active advocacy of the faulty phraseology. To drive the final nail, we note that when the judge, following the charge, asked for objections at sidebar, plaintiffs' counsel registered no opposition to the interrogatory. 34 It is well settled that a litigant who accedes to the form of a special interrogatory will not be heard to complain after the fact. See J.C. Motor Lines, Inc., 689 F.2d at 603; Frankel v. Burke's Excavating, Inc., 397 F.2d 167, 170 (3d Cir.1968); Wyoming Construction Co. v. Western Casualty and Surety Co., 275 F.2d 97, 104 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 362 U.S. 976, 80 S.Ct. 1061, 4 L.Ed.2d 1011 (1960); see also 5A J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore's Federal Practice p 49.03 (2d ed. 1988) at 49-17. If a slip has been made, the parties detrimentally affected must act expeditiously to cure it, not lie in wait and ask for another trial when matters turn out not to their liking. See Nimrod v. Sylvester, 369 F.2d 870, 873 (1st Cir.1966) (plaintiff who sat by when court neglected to answer jury request for supplementary instruction could not complain on appeal; lack of awareness was of [counsel's] own making). In this instance, we think it clear that plaintiffs waived any objection as to the interrogatory's form. Accord Central Progressive Bank v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., 658 F.2d 377, 381-82 (5th Cir.1981) (by failing to protest before jury discharged, party waived objection to interrogatory that, in retrospect, submitted question of law due to conjunctive phrasing). Especially where, as here, plaintiffs bear a lion's share of the responsibility for the infelicitous phrasing, they ought not to be allowed to base an appeal on the ambiguities and omissions that were the natural consequence of their strategy. As we have stated in an analogous setting, to hold otherwise would place a premium on agreeable acquiescence to perceivable error as a weapon of appellate advocacy. Merchant v. Ruhle, 740 F.2d 86, 92 (1st Cir.1984). 35 3. Pre-1968 Pollution. We do not believe that preservation of the claimed error referable to pre-1968 contamination saved the plaintiffs' bacon. The district court's finding on the omitted issue concerned the nature and direction of groundwater flow, a matter altogether separate and distinct from whether waste disposal took place on the 15-acre site in or before 1968. Groundwater flow, unlike the occurrence of pre-1968 disposal, was not directed out of the case by the judge's earlier ruling. The reverse is true; the issue was fully tried. Testimony was taken from no fewer than three experts. The absence of a definite jury finding as to groundwater flow was due solely to compound phrasing of the interrogatory, and bore no relationship to the directed verdict. Inasmuch as plaintiffs accepted and endorsed the interrogatory as submitted, they cannot now complain that they were caught in its toils. 36 Because the point is significant, we digress for a moment to explicate in greater detail why a directed verdict on waste disposal did not preclude a Rule 49(a) finding on groundwater flow. The key is that the relevant hydrogeological characteristics were constant from the pre-1968 period to the post-1968 period; thus, the critical hydrogeological factors would have remained the same whether or not dumping was allowed on the 15 acres during the early years. Indeed, plaintiffs' hydrology expert, Dr. Pinder, so testified. E.g., T. 42:114. Inevitably, a finding on post-1968 groundwater flow would have to be accorded probative force in the earlier time frame. If, as the district court found, it was impossible to determine whether any contaminant from the Beatrice site reached the wells, then befoulment of the 15 acres, whether before or after 1968, made not the slightest difference. Plaintiffs' complaint, after all, was not that the land had been defiled, but that the defilement had poisoned the wells, thereby inflicting harm. Given this set of circumstances, it is unnecessary to decide whether the evidence of pre-1968 disposal was sufficient to warrant jury submission. Compare Frankel, 397 F.2d at 169 (no need to review evidentiary ruling because evidence did not relate to issue placed before the jury by answered interrogatory; jury's negative answer thereto was dispositive of case, rendering evidentiary question academic). 37 Not easily daunted, appellants asseverate that, if this be so, the finding on groundwater flow was all the more improper, because it effectively mooted plaintiffs' appeal of the directed verdict on pre-1968 disposal. 4 This contention, despite its superficial appeal, is a mere heuristic. Preservation of the right to appeal an issue, or the right to a jury trial on it, imports no guarantee that the issue will prove determinative or even relevant. The set-aside issue remains subject to the logical force of other findings by the judge and jury. Those findings may well obviate the need to consider the issue; yet, if they are neither erroneous nor improperly influenced by the set-aside, there is no paradigmatic flaw in according them dispositive effect. Take, for example, a ruling directing a verdict in favor of a putative tortfeasor on an element of damages (say, emotional distress). If the jury finds for the plaintiff and awards other damages (e.g., lost wages, medical expenses), plaintiff can appeal the ruling which blocked recovery for psychic harm. But if the jury finds for the defendant on liability, few would dispute that claimant's right to have the emotional distress ruling reviewed has been short-circuited. When all is said and done, a federal appellate court ought not to scratch an intellectual itch, no matter how tantalizing the problem, unless something turns on it. 38 We note, too, that the district court's Rule 49(a) finding on groundwater dynamics was entirely consistent with the jury verdict. At trial, the parties assumed that a negative answer to the first interrogatory would dispose of the case against Beatrice. The jury was so instructed, and was told that it would have to reach such an answer if it accepted the testimony of defendants' hydrogeology experts. Appellants did not object. By answering the four-part interrogatory with an unbroken skein of noes,, the jury exonerated appellee. Thereafter, the judge performed his Rule 49(a) role by making an explicit determination concerning groundwater flow--a finding which was omitted from, but likely implicit in, the verdict. This is exactly the sort of function which the rule was designed to serve. See, e.g., Guidry v. Kem Manufacturing Co., 598 F.2d at 406 (rule sidesteps hazard of verdict remain[ing] incomplete and indecisive because jury did not decide every element of recovery or defense); cf. Gallick v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 372 U.S. 108, 119, 83 S.Ct. 659, 666, 9 L.Ed.2d 618 (1963) (discussing duty of court to harmonize jury's answers to special interrogatories, if possible). 39 The caselaw relied upon in appellants' scholarly brief does not in any sense require a contrary result. We see no need to examine those authorities at great length. Appellants' leading case is In re Randall, 712 F.2d 1275 (8th Cir.1983). There, the district court directed a verdict for defendant on a negligence count. After reversal on appeal, 677 F.2d 1226 (8th Cir.1982), the judge invoked Rule 49(a) and made a finding in defendant's favor on the issue of proximate cause. The Eighth Circuit again reversed, believing it erroneous to say that the parties had waived their right to a jury trial on the issue of proximate cause under the negligence count. The negligence count was withdrawn from the jury by the trial judge. 712 F.2d at 1277. We agree. Having agreed, however, we come full circle: the Randall rule would apply here if the trial court had made a Rule 49(a) determination on the same issue which had been directed out of the case, that is, the issue of pre-1968 pollution. Be that as it may, the actual finding below was of a different breed, made on the discrete issue of groundwater dynamics. Randall is, therefore, inapposite. 40 Our own case of Payton v. Abbott Labs, supra, is cut from much the same cloth. There, we stated that Rule 49(a) gives the district court the authority to make a finding on the omitted question of fact; it does not give it the right to substitute its judgment for that of the jury on [a] question.... 780 F.2d at 154. That is so. But here, faithful to the Payton admonition, the district court did not displace the jury; it merely filled a gap left open by the verdict. Palmiero v. Spada Distributing Co., 217 F.2d 561 (9th Cir.1954), another of plaintiffs' stable of cases, is distressingly far afield. Palmiero held that Rule 49(a) findings were not valid where the attorneys failed to object because they were led astray and led to believe that the interrogatories submitted to the jury would cover all the substantial issues of fact. Id. at 565. Unlike the instant case--where the judge was frank and forthcoming and where plaintiffs had seen and endorsed the special verdict form--the judge in Palmiero made certain representations as to the intended language and scope of the interrogatories, but then did not carry out what counsel were justified in believing was meant. Id. Nothing resembling that unhappy scenario is reflected in this record. 41 4. Weight of the Evidence. 5 As discussed supra, it is readily evident that the district judge was within the pale in invoking Rule 49(a) and making a specific finding on the omitted issue of groundwater flow. Notwithstanding, it remains for us to consider whether, viewing the record as a whole, the finding was clearly erroneous. We limn the pertinent testimony. 42 Dr. Guswa, Grace's hydrogeology expert, testified that several factors made it impossible to draw a firm conclusion as to whether wells G and H drew water from the 15-acre wetland. Groundwater movement in the area was determined in part by the pumping of two wells used by the Rileyco operation (one on the 15 acres, one on the nearby tannery property). Pumping of the tannery well, and of wells G and H, undeniably created barriers to groundwater flow, but the location of these barriers could not be determined with any degree of certainty. To complicate matters further, no pumping records existed for the tannery wells. Furthermore, the topography itself presented an obstacle to authoritative resolution of the question. The wetland was essentially flat, with a gradient of approximately 1/1000th of a foot. Due to shortcomings in available techniques, water level measurements on the site varied significantly. This was of considerable moment: for an estimate of groundwater flow direction to be meaningful, the precision of the measurements would have to surpass the natural gradient. Given the tiny gradient present here, uncertainties in the metage of water levels likely concealed the true direction of groundwater flow. In other words, from a theoretical viewpoint, seemingly small discrepancies in water level mensuration could reverse the model's result for groundwater direction vis-a-vis the wetland; and from a practical viewpoint, as Dr. Guswa opined, the error in measurement would exceed the gradient on the 15 acres. 43 For these reasons, plaintiffs' conclusions as to groundwater flow on the 15-acre wetland were, in Dr. Guswa's view, inherently unreliable. Taking into account the limitations on physical, scientific, and historical data, the expert affirmed that it was a matter of garbage in, garbage out. T. 69:26; see also id. at 31. He also testified that half the water pumped by wells G and H was drawn from the Aberjona River, making it a primary source of the complaint chemicals which contaminated the wells. This opinion made considerable sense when paired with United States Geological Service tests showing that the flow of the Aberjona decreased markedly when the wells were pumping. To be sure, plaintiffs' expert (Dr. Pinder) maintained that the bottom of the river was relatively impermeable. He speculated that it would take a decade or more after well G began to pump before any water from the Aberjona was drawn to, and pumped from, the well. Especially in light of the pump-test evidence, the district court was justified in preferring Dr. Guswa's testimony to that of Dr. Pinder. Such choices, after all, comprise precisely the sort of differential factfinding that the Civil Rules contemplate. 6 44 We need ride this horse no further. Having carefully reviewed the voluminous record, we can state with assurance that the Guswa testimony, taken as a whole and in appropriate context, was neither inherently improbable nor overbalanced by the convictive force of any conflicting evidence. The district court, we think, was entitled to credit it. As we have consistently held, once expert testimony on a point is properly admitted, it is normally the prerogative of the factfinder to determine the weight and value to be accorded to [it]. Allied Int'l, Inc. v. Int'l Longshoremen's Ass'n, 814 F.2d 32, 40 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 79, 98 L.Ed.2d 41 (1987). Such a determination having been made, we have no brief to interfere: Where the conclusions of the [trier] depend on its election among conflicting facts or its choice of which competing inferences to draw from undisputed basic facts, appellate courts should defer to such fact-intensive findings, absent clear error. Irons v. FBI, 811 F.2d 681, 684 (1st Cir.1987); see also Keyes v. Secretary of the Navy, 853 F.2d 1016, 1027 (1st Cir.1988) (where there are various permissible views of the proof ... it [is] the district judge's prerogative, indeed, his duty, to choose among them). 45 D. Effect of the Findings. 46 Having determined that the trial court's findings under Rule 49(a) were properly made and supported, we must now assess their effect upon the balance of plaintiffs' case. 47 To prevail in tort, plaintiffs had to establish that (1) Beatrice contaminated or allowed others to contaminate the 15-acre parcel, (2) with complaint chemicals, (3) which travelled to Wells G and H, and (4) thereupon caused plaintiffs' injuries. The post-verdict findings snap the vital third link of this causal chain. If the uncertain nature and direction of groundwater flow makes it impossible to prove that complaint chemicals travelled from the wetland to the wells, then plaintiffs' illnesses cannot be tied to an act or omission of Beatrice. See Dedham Water Co. v. Cumberland Farms, Inc., 689 F.Supp. 1223, 1224-27 (D.Mass.1988) (plaintiffs were required to prove by preponderance of evidence that contamination in wells had originated at defendant's facility), notice of appeal filed (1st Cir. Sept. 1, 1988). If we credit the lower court's determination that the complaint chemicals discovered in the wells had not been shown to have emigrated from the 15 acres, plaintiffs' tort claims are sunk. 48 We note at the outset that the judge's factual findings render entirely moot appellants' contention that Beatrice had a duty to warn the public about hazards on its land and to remedy such hazards. The import of the court's findings could not be clearer: if it could not be shown that the 15-acre site was a source of complaint chemicals in the municipal drinking water, a fortiori, there existed no cognizable hazard that could be the subject of abatement. In other words, warning plaintiffs about dangers inherent on the site would not have prevented the harm, since it was never established that chemicals travelled from the site to the wells. See, e.g., Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 366 (1965) (One who takes possession of land upon which there is an ... artificial condition unreasonably dangerous to persons or property outside of the land is subject to liability for physical harm caused to them by the condition....) (emphasis supplied); Dedham Water Co. v. Cumberland Farms, Inc., 689 F.Supp. at 1226-27 & n. 7 (common law theories in water pollution case require proof of underground transmission as causal nexus between defendant's conduct and plaintiff's injury). Compare Carrier v. Riddell, Inc., 721 F.2d 867, 868 (1st Cir.1983). Moreover, because plaintiffs failed to prove the vital third link--a connection between defendant's conduct and spoliation of the water--we have no occasion to decide whether the district court was correct in holding that Beatrice had no duty to curtail its actions or to warn plaintiffs of them. 49 For much the same reasons, we have no occasion to pass upon plaintiffs' claim that the doctrine of strict liability should have been applied in the case. To be sure, the highest court of Massachusetts adopted the theory of strict liability in Clark-Aiken Co. v. Cromwell-Wright Co., 367 Mass. 70, 323 N.E.2d 876 (1975). Nonetheless, the court cautioned that if the plaintiff's damage does not directly result from the risk created, or is not a 'natural consequence' thereof, recovery will be denied. 323 N.E.2d at 887 n. 21. That admonition bars this door: since appellants were unable to prove that chemicals migrated from the 15 acres to wells G and H, it cannot be said that contamination of the water supply was a natural consequence of defendant's conduct. 7 50 Because the trial court's findings on groundwater flow were both plausible and adequately rooted in the record, see supra Part II(C), they were dispositive of the case on liability. Accordingly, plaintiffs' initial appeal, No. 87-1405, must be overruled. 51