Opinion ID: 1159308
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: review of motions for new trial

Text: Under Rule 59(a)(6) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, a trial court may grant a new trial on the ground of [i]nsufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict... . The trial judge has broad latitude in granting or denying a motion for a new trial, and will not be overturned on appeal absent an abuse of discretion. But when the issue is alleged insufficiency of evidence, the decisions of this Court have established a different standard for our review of the trial court's decisions on motions for new trial, depending on whether the court has denied the motion or granted it. Where the trial court has denied the motion for new trial, its decision will be sustained on appeal if there was an evidentiary basis for the jury's decision... . The trial court's denial of a motion for a new trial will be reversed only if the evidence to support the verdict was completely lacking or was so slight and unconvincing as to make the verdict plainly unreasonable and unjust. McCloud v. Baum, Utah, 569 P.2d 1125, 1127 (1977); Pollesche v. Transamerican Insurance Co., 27 Utah 2d 430, 497 P.2d 236 (1972). Where the trial court has granted the motion for new trial, its decision will be sustained on appeal if the record contains substantial competent evidence which would support a verdict for the [moving party]. King v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 117 Utah 40, 53, 212 P.2d 692, 698 (1949); Brown v. Johnson, 24 Utah 2d 388, 472 P.2d 942 (1970); Marshall v. Ogden Union Railway & Depot Co., 118 Utah 161, 221 P.2d 868 (1950). This rule affords maximum latitude to the discretion of the trial court, which has heard the testimony and other evidence presented to the jury and is best suited to evaluate the claim that it is insufficient to justify the verdict. But in order to assure that a new trial is not a pointless act, the trial court cannot grant a new trial on the basis of insufficient evidence unless the record contains substantial competent evidence which would support a verdict for the [moving party]. King v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., supra . Focusing on the inviolability of jury verdicts rather than the discretion of the trial court, defendant argues that under existing Utah law a jury verdict is given considerable weight on a denial [of] a motion for a new trial but is given no credence whatsoever on the granting of a motion for new trial. In order to give added protection to the right to a trial by jury, defendant urges us to follow Lyndes v. Scofield, 180 Mont. 177, 589 P.2d 1000 (1979), and similar cases in other states and modify our existing rule so that the trial court cannot grant a motion for new trial if there was substantial evidence to support the jury verdict. But this is precisely the argument this Court rejected in King v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., supra , for reasons we still find persuasive. In his exhaustive opinion for the Court in that case, Justice Wolfe said this argument was amply answered by the following comments by the United States Supreme Court in Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1, 13-14, 19 S.Ct. 580, 585, 43 L.Ed. 873 (1899): Trial by jury in the primary and usual sense of the term at the common law and in the American constitutions, is not merely a trial by a jury of 12 men ... but it is a trial by a jury of 12 men in the presence and under the superintendence of a judge empowered to instruct them on the law and to advise them on the facts, and (except on acquittal of a criminal charge) to set aside their verdict, if, in his opinion, it is against the law or the evidence. 117 Utah at 50; 212 P.2d at 697. Later in the King opinion, the Court gave this additional explanation: All that resulted from the granting of the new trial was that the determination of the issues upon which liability was dependent was taken away from one jury and given to another jury. There was no usurpation by the trial court of the jury's function. As was observed by Lord Mansfield in Bright v. Eynon, 1 Burrows 390, the effect of a new trial is no more than having the cause more deliberately considered by another jury, when there is reasonable doubt, or perhaps a certainty that justice has not been done. Id. at 54; 212 P.2d at 699. A second trial is not without its costs in terms of scarce litigant and judicial resources and the possible unavailability of witnesses or the erosion of their memories. Consequently, the trial judge's prerogative to grant a new trial on an evidentiary basis under Rule 59(a)(6) should be exercised with forebearance. Subject only to that caution, we reaffirm the present standard enunciated in King v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., supra . For good reason, defendant does not bother to argue that the trial court's order granting plaintiff's motion for a new trial offended that standard.