Opinion ID: 663715
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Instruction Regarding the City's Indemnification of Holcomb for Compensatory Damages

Text: 19 Holcomb next challenges the district court's instruction informing the jury that the City would indemnify Holcomb for any compensatory damages awarded to Larez. Holcomb contends that the instruction had no relevance to Larez's damages and was therefore improper. We agree. 20 It has long been the rule in our courts that evidence of insurance or other indemnification is not admissible on the issue of damages, and, should any such information reach the ears of the jurors, the court should issue a curative instruction. See, e.g., Halladay v. Verschoor, 381 F.2d 100, 112 (8th Cir.1967) (Unless the fact that the plaintiff is insured or otherwise indemnified is a material issue in the case, or unless the prejudicial effect has been cured by an admonition or instruction to the jury to disregard it, it has been almost universally held that the receipt of such evidence constitutes prejudicial error sufficient to require reversal.). We see no reason to depart from this rule in the context of a Sec. 1983 action. 21 The district court instructed the jury, over defense counsel's objection, as follows: 22 If an employee of a public entity requests the public entity to defend him against any claim arising out of an act made within the scope of his employment, and gives the entity sufficient notice, and reasonably cooperates in good faith in the defense of the claim, the public entity shall pay any compensatory damages awarded. 23 Instruction No. 45 (emphasis added). The district court seems to have had an legitimate motive in informing the jury that the City would indemnify Holcomb. The court reasoned that because jurors were likely to feel sympathy for Holcomb, a public servant, they might decide not to compensate Larez fully so as not to place an undue financial burden on Holcomb. Once the jury was told that the City would pay, the court reasoned, the jury would be more likely to focus exclusively on the extent of the injury suffered by Larez. 5 24 Although the district court was right to be concerned that juror sympathies might district the jury from dispassionate determination of an appropriate damages award, its instruction on indemnification was not a proper response. The district court should have addressed its concern with a firm admonition to the jury. The court, for example, might have emphasized that if the jury determined that Larez's constitutional rights had been violated, the jury should calculate damages based solely on the injuries actually suffered by Larez, without regard for Holcomb's finances or the jury's personal likes and dislikes. 25 Although there is no way of ensuring that jurors engaged in calculating compensatory damages focus exclusively on the injury suffered by the plaintiff, all efforts of the court should be directed toward removing potentially distracting considerations. Instructions on indemnification only open the door to such distractions. In this case, having been told that Holcomb would not bear the burden of a damages award, the jury might have been tempted, out of sympathy for Larez, to inflate the award beyond the amount necessary to compensate her. Moreover, if we allow juries in Sec. 1983 actions to be told that the government will indemnify the defendant, we presumably should also allow the defendant to explain that any award paid by the government will come out of the people's taxes. Instead of focusing the jury's attention on the injury actually suffered by the plaintiff, we would be subjecting the jury to a flurry of largely irrelevant assertions and counter-assertions concerning who may or may not be financially harmed by a particular award. 26 Although the Ninth Circuit has yet to address this issue in the Sec. 1983 context, we here follow the lead of the Eighth Circuit, the only Circuit to have announced expressly that it would continue to apply the common law indemnification rule in Sec. 1983 damages determinations. See Green v. Baron, 879 F.2d 305, 310 (8th Cir.1989) (holding that, in Sec. 1983 action, court should not instruct jury that state will indemnify employee); Griffin v. Hilke, 804 F.2d 1052, 1057 (8th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 482 U.S. 914, 107 S.Ct. 3184, 3185, 96 L.Ed.2d 673 (1987) (noting that [t]he general rule in the state courts and under Fed.R.Civ.P. 61 is that interjection of the fact that the defendant is protected by insurance or other indemnity may be prejudicial error requiring reversal, and holding that, in Sec. 1983 action, court's failure to provide curative instruction after counsel for plaintiff suggested that city government owes for wrongful acts of police officers was reversible error). 6 27 Having determined that the district court erred when it instructed the jury that the city would likely pay any compensatory damages award, we must next determine whether the error warrants a new trial on both liability and damages, or on damages alone. There is no evidence, and little suggestion in the arguments of counsel, that the district court's instruction on indemnification might have infected the jury's determination of liability. The evidence in the record, moreover, amply supports the jury's finding that the acts of Holcomb deprived Larez of her Fourth Amendment rights: Larez testified that she was handcuffed, detained in a police car, and then put in a jail cell for over an hour, and Holcomb concedes that he did not have probable cause to make an arrest. Accordingly, we will not upset the jury's determination of liability and will reverse and remand for a new trial on damages alone. 28