Opinion ID: 393816
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Court's Failure to Permit Objections Out of Hearing of Jury

Text: 11 Rule 49(a) Fed.R.Civ.P. (Special Verdicts and Interrogatories) and Rule 51 (Instructions to Jury: Objections) require that objections under these provisions be made before the jury retires. Rule 51 provides that (n)o party may assign as error the giving or failure to give an instruction unless he objects thereto before the jury retires. Rule 49(a) provides that (i)f ... the court omits any issue of fact raised by the pleadings or by the evidence, each party waives his right to a trial by jury of the issue so omitted unless before the jury retires he demands its submission to the jury. Rule 51 also requires that (o)pportunity ... be given to make the objection out of the hearing of the jury. Rule 49(a) contains no such language. It is well settled in this Circuit that, when the trial court errs by refusing to permit a party's objections to a charge to be made out of the hearing of the jury, the party's failure to object before the jury retires is excused and his objections may be raised on appeal. Bentley v. Stromberg-Carlson Corp., 638 F.2d 9, 12 (2d Cir. 1981). 12 Even though Rule 49(a) does not contain language similar to that of Rule 51 requiring that the trial court hear objections out of the hearing of the jury, logic requires similar treatment where, as here, the special verdict questions were included in the charge. In cases such as this, there is no reason to give parties less protection when they object to the phrasing of a special verdict question than when they object to the phrasing of general instructions. Therefore, the failure to permit the objections to the special questions out of the hearing of the jury was an abuse of the trial court's discretion and we will consider these objections preserved for appeal. 13 The formulation of special verdict questions rests in the discretion of the trial judge, Tights, Inc. v. Acme-McCrary Corp., 541 F.2d 1047, 1060 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 980, 97 S.Ct. 493, 50 L.Ed.2d 589 (1976); McDonnell v. Timmerman, 269 F.2d 54, 58 (8th Cir. 1959); Norfolk Southern Ry. Co. v. Davis Frozen Foods, Inc., 195 F.2d 662, 666 (4th Cir. 1952), and therefore our review is confined to inquiring whether the trial court's submission of the issues in the form of these questions constituted an abuse of discretion. Tights, Inc. v. Acme-McCrary Corp., supra, 541 F.2d at 1060; see Abernathy v. Southern Pacific Co., 426 F.2d 512, 514 (5th Cir. 1970). We will reverse a judgment entered upon answers to questions which mislead and confuse the jury or which inaccurately frame the issues to be resolved by the jury. See Dougherty v. Continental Oil Co., 579 F.2d 954, 958 (5th Cir. 1978); Dreiling v. General Electric Co., 511 F.2d 768, 774 (5th Cir. 1975); Stemler v. Burke, 344 F.2d 393, 397 (6th Cir. 1965); Scott v. Isbrandtsen Co., 327 F.2d 113, 119 (4th Cir. 1964). 14 Appellants complain that the special questions were phrased in the conjunctive rather than the disjunctive that the questions should have read or rather than and. Appellants claim that they should have prevailed on the negligence count upon their proof that the accident was caused by the negligent design of the Mercury. They assert that the conjunctive form of the question prevented the jury from returning a verdict in their favor on that basis alone. Thus, they contend that before the jury could answer the negligence question in the affirmative, they also had to find that Ford was negligent in its manufacture, fabrication, maintenance, repair, upkeep, and failure to recall the Mercury. We conclude that the submitted question created an unfair obstacle to the jury's returning an answer favorable to the plaintiffs. The second question addressed to the strict liability count is equally flawed because, in the form read to the jury, it was also phrased in the conjunctive rather than the disjunctive. 15 Appellees respond that the jury was not misled by the phrasing of the questions because they knew that plaintiffs' primary contention at trial had been that the Mercury was negligently or defectively designed. However, just as we must assume that the jury follows the law as it is explained to them by the judge, Fairmount Glass Works v. Cub Fork Coal Co., 287 U.S. 474, 485, 53 S.Ct. 252, 255, 77 L.Ed. 511 (1933); Lifetime Siding, Inc. v. United States, 359 F.2d 657, 661 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 921, 87 S.Ct. 233, 17 L.Ed.2d 144 (1966), we cannot assume that the jury ignored the literal, grammatical meaning of the written questions posed by that same judge. Accordingly, the judgment dismissing the complaint must be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial solely on the negligence and strict products liability claims. 16 In addition to the reversible error discussed above, the special verdict contained other deficiencies which should be remedied on retrial. The first question requested the jury to determine whether Ford had acted negligently in a number of matters, some of which were never raised at trial. For example, our review of the record does not reveal any evidence of negligent repair or upkeep of the Mercury by Ford and, therefore, these matters should not have been included in the question. In the second question, the court should not have included the phrase fit for the purpose for which they were intended in a question respecting strict products liability. That phrase relates to the implied warranty action, see Note, Analyzing Defect in New York Products Liability Law: The Proof Is in the Product, 29 Syracuse L.Rev. 1217, 1231-32 (1978), contained in the complaint but abandoned at trial. Finally, the special verdict did not contain a separate inquiry into the existence and percentage of any comparative negligence on the part of Emeilia or Charles Cann. Such an inquiry would help focus the jury's deliberations on a major issue in this case the alleged contributory negligence of the plaintiffs.