Opinion ID: 472982
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Fourth Amendment Damage Awards

Text: 170 As earlier recounted, the jury awarded plaintiffs $40,000 each on their fourth amendment claims against the individual police officers; on the common law false arrest claims, the award was $10,000 for Carter and $5,000 for Parker. On post-trial reflection (prompted by defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, or a remittitur), the district judge determined that the fourth amendment and false arrest awards were duplicative, i.e., they compensated plaintiffs twice for the same tortious conduct--the arrest and imprisonment of plaintiffs Carter and Parker. 10 171 The judge further recognized, on his own initiative, that he had charged the jury incorrectly on the damages awardable for fourth amendment infractions. Without objection from the defense, he had instructed: Constitutional rights are of themselves valuable, and you may compensate the plaintiffs for the loss of their rights as such. Tr. 1464. Our precedent, however, limited recovery for the violation of constitutional rights to actual losses suffered (e.g., bodily injury, mental anguish, loss of earnings) or, in the absence thereof, nominal damages. Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1, 59-60 (D.C.Cir.1984), cert. denied, --- U.S. ---, 105 S.Ct. 1843, 85 L.Ed.2d 142 (1985); Doe v. District of Columbia, 697 F.2d 1115, 1122-25 (D.C.Cir.1983). Citing Hobson, the Supreme Court has just affirmed that damages based on the abstract value or importance of constitutional rights are not authorized by Sec. 1983. Memphis Community School District v. Stachura, --- U.S. ---, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986). To cure the mistake in his charge and eliminate the double recovery, the district judge deleted the $40,000 fourth amendment awards in their entirety. Mem.Op. at 4-6. 11 He did not seek plaintiffs' consent to the cutback; indeed he ordered it over plaintiffs' objection. This was improper remittitur procedure. 172 On remand, the issue we address here should not recur. The district judge will no doubt cure the error in his charge and submit to the jury a verdict form that does not invite duplicative awards. Nonetheless, we think it an appropriate precaution to explain why it was improper for the district judge, without plaintiffs' consent, simply to lop off the $40,000 awards. 173 Except when it is apparent as a matter of law that certain identifiable sums included in the verdict should not have been there, a trial judge should not unconditionally reduce the amount of damages awarded by verdict, for to do so impermissibly encroaches upon the litigants' constitutional right to a jury. See 11 C. WRIGHT & A. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE Sec. 2815, at 99 (1973). The district judge in this case considered the $40,000 amounts awarded on the plaintiffs' fourth amendment claims to be readily identifiable sums attributable entirely to the error in his charge. Mem.Op. at 6 n. 3. We think the extent to which the charge error affected the jury's damage assessments is not so readily pinpointed. 174 If a trial court, employing a special verdict, erroneously allows the jury to render an award for punitive damages, for example, that segregated, precisely stated award would be readily identifiable as relating to a wholly discrete issue of law, and the special verdict could be rectified by the court without further jury proceedings. See Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 256 n. 12, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 2754 n. 12, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981); see also Scottish Union & National Ins. Co. v. Bejcy, 201 F.2d 163, 166 (6th Cir.1953). Other examples of readily identifiable sums incorporated in a verdict that should not have been there include interest, see New York, L.E. & W. R.R. v. Estill, 147 U.S. 591, 619-22, 13 S.Ct. 444, 455-56, 37 L.Ed. 292 (1893), and the amount that should have been subtracted under an insurance policy's apportionment clause, see Westchester Fire Ins. Co. v. Hanley, 284 F.2d 409, 418 (6th Cir.1960) (applying insurance policy's apportionment clause to reduce plaintiffs' recovery to 75% of total damages jury determined plaintiffs had suffered). See also Crossman v. Fountainbleau Hotel Corp., 346 F.2d 152, 153 (5th Cir.1965) (judgment reduced by witness travel expenses and fees for which there was no entitlement under the applicable law). 175 Here, however, one could not say with certainty that the $40,000 figures recorded as damages under the heading fourth amendment, reflected simply and only price tags the jury placed on the loss of constitutional rights as such. The charge informed the jury that plaintiffs could recover for bodily injury, mental suffering, and wage losses under the fourth amendment heading. Tr. 1464. Conceivably, the jurors here totalled the amounts they found for these items of actual damage, and then allocated the total between the false arrest and fourth amendment counts. Perhaps they had in mind, in settling on the respective verdicts, limiting the sums for which the District would be answerable directly, based on a notion that the city itself was not blameworthy. Such a judgment, although not consonant with respondeat superior doctrine, is the kind of response jurors not altogether uncommonly make. Cf. 9 C. WRIGHT & A. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE Sec. 2503, at 489 (1971) (noting argument that one of the purposes of the jury system is to permit the jury to temper strict rules of law by the demands and necessities of substantial justice). Reviewing the record at this distance from the trial, with no opportunity to poll the jury, all one could say with security is this: How much, if anything, the jurors awarded for the per se violation of Constitutional rights, Mem.Op. at 6 n. 3, is speculative, destined to remain unknown and unknowable, given the summary, opaque nature of the special verdict form. 12 176 Unless a jury's assessment of damages includes an impermissible component that can be identified and calculated with precision--and as we have just explained, the fourth amendment awards here are not of that character--it is not the district court's prerogative to enter a remittitur by fiat. Instead, the appropriate procedure is to pose to plaintiffs the choice between consent to the reduction and a new trial. See, e.g., Brewer v. Uniroyal, Inc., 498 F.2d 973, 976 (6th Cir.1974). 13 Only by so proceeding can a district judge avoid encroaching on the parties' jury trial right. 177 In sum, a trial judge may enter judgment on a jury's verdict despite a charge error that may bear on the size of the verdict, if the adverse party does not timely object to the charge error. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 51. The judge may reduce the damage award if the verdict winner consents to the reduction, or the judge may order a new trial on his own initiative. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(d) (new trial may be ordered, on initiative of the court, for any reason for which [court] might have granted a new trial on motion of a party). But the judge may not decree a verdict excision--except for a plainly identifiable sum certain incorrectly included in the verdict--absent the plaintiff's informed consent. 178