Opinion ID: 787454
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Verdict Amount

Text: 44 The Officers contend that they are entitled to a new trial, or at least a remittitur, because the jury award of $900,000 ($300,000 per Officer), which only compensates for Champion's physical and mental pain and suffering, is excessive. In essence, the Officers suggest that a cumulative verdict of $900,000 against the Officers for at most a 17-minute period of physical and mental pain and suffering is excessive. Def. Br. at 38. Because the Officers ask us to undertake a Sissiphyean task of comparing Champion's pain and suffering to other forms of pain and suffering and because the award does not shock the conscience, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Officers' motion. 45 We undertake a highly deferential review of the district court, which itself is sharply limited in its ability to remit a jury verdict. [A] jury verdict should not be remitted by a court unless it is beyond the maximum damages that the jury reasonably could find to be compensatory for a party's loss. Gregory v. Shelby County, 220 F.3d 433, 443 (6th Cir.2000) (quotation omitted). Our remittitur standard favors maintaining the award, [u]nless the award is (1) beyond the range supportable by proof or (2) so excessive as to shock the conscience, ... or (3) the result of a mistake. Bickel v. Korean Air Lines Co., 96 F.3d 151, 156 (6th Cir.1996) (quotation omitted) A trial court is within its discretion in remitting a verdict only when, after reviewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the awardee, it is convinced that the verdict is clearly excessive, resulted from passion, bias or prejudice; or is so excessive or inadequate as to shock the judicial conscience of the court. Gregory, 220 F.3d at 443. 46 The Officers attempt to prove that the award shocked the conscience in two ways. First, they suggest that the medical evidence is insufficient to support a $900,000 award. Citing the testimony of both sides' medical experts, the Officers charge that Champion suffered only superficial abrasions and hemorrhaging, which would not have caused severe pain. Additionally, the experts portray Champion's death as being relatively peaceful by showing that any of the three potential, and possibly cumulative, causes of Champion's death — positional asphyxia, asphyxia resulting from gastric aspiration, or cardiac arrest prompted by Champion's angulated right coronary artery — would not have been particularly painful. 47 However, other testimony averred that Champion may have suffered physical pain. First, Plaintiffs' expert Dr. Gerber located a contusion on Champion's lung that may have resulted from pressure applied by the Officers. Second, the autopsy revealed evidence of extensive aspiration of gastric contents, J.A. at 270 (Sperry Test.), which may have signaled that Champion was choking on his own vomit. Third, Dr. Gerber agreed that someone suffering from positional asphyxia would be gasping for breath, which generates psychic pain stemming from anxiety and fear. J.A. at 221 (Gerber Test.). 48 The jury heard inconsistent evidence attesting to the level of Champion's pain. We do not attempt to measure it anew. No one but Champion can ever know the full amount of physical and mental pain and suffering experienced during his seventeen-minute ordeal, but the jury heard various and conflicting pieces of evidence and believed that Champion suffered. Their verdict does not lack an evidentiary basis, particularly given that the verdict encompassed not only physical pain, but also mental pain and suffering. The panic of being unable to breathe and the pressure limiting one's breath cannot be discounted. See J.A. at 224-25 (Gerber Test.) (stating that from a physiological standpoint, an individual during asphyxiation would feel fear, agitation and struggle; air hunger is something that causes fear). Simply put, there is evidence sufficient to support the jury's award such that the district court did not err in denying the motion to remit the judgment. 49 Second, the Officers cite to several cases in which decedents received smaller awards for what the Officers construe as greater pain and suffering than that endured by Champion. Endeavoring to compare awards is difficult and often unfruitful, because the factual circumstances of each case differ so widely and because it places reviewing courts in the position of making awkward assessments of pain and suffering better left to a jury. Layne v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 00-5607, 2001 WL 1480736, at  4 (6th Cir. Nov. 19, 2001) ([C]omparable decisions are `instructive' but `not controlling' when we review for abuses of discretion.); Thompson v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp., 621 F.2d 814, 827 (6th Cir.1980) ([C]ases involving similar injuries are in no sense controlling.). The Defendants cite several cases that they believe demonstrate the unconscionability of the award given the relatively brief period of his pain and suffering. Compare Gregory, 220 F.3d at 433-44 ($778,000 award not remitted when decedent was beaten horribly by a fellow prisoner and lay in his cell for ten hours before being discovered); Tatum v. Land, No. 95-6378, 1997 WL 85144, at  (6th Cir. Feb.26, 1997) ($600,000 award not remitted when decedent suffered severe injuries to shoulder, pelvis, and face as a result of a car accident and who survived for five hours after the accident); with Sharpe v. City of Lewisburg, 677 F.Supp. 1362, 1365 (M.D.Tenn.1988) ($100,000 award for pain and suffering reduced after decedent was shot eight times and died within minutes of the shooting.). The plaintiffs respond by citing our decision in Bickel, when we affirmed the district court's denial of remittitur for several pain and suffering awards exceeding $1 million when the decedents, passengers on a Korea-bound plane attacked by the Soviet Union, remained conscious during the twelve minute descent into the Sea of Japan, suffering the physical effects of decompression and recompression along the way, as well as the horror of knowing that death was imminent. Bickel, 96 F.3d at 155. 50 The Officers ask us to make an impossible comparison between Champion's pain and the pain of others. We cannot ascertain whether Champion's mental and physical pain and suffering, magnified by his likely inability to comprehend what was happening, equaled the pain and suffering of the airplane passengers plummeting out of the sky for twelve minutes in Bickel or the ten hours of slow death endured by the decedent in Gregory. Such comparisons are impossible and improper, because one cannot so mechanistically measure pain and suffering. In Bickel, we wrote: It is impossible to determine the exact value of the pain and suffering which the decedents may have endured.... One simply cannot quantify the mental and physical pain and suffering such an experience would cause, and thus we cannot conclude that the evidence does not support the awards. Id. at 156. The award granted here by the jury, which was capable of judging credibility and actually heard live testimony regarding the incident as opposed to the written record before us, is not unreasonable, excessive, or conscience-shocking. We therefore hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Officers' motion for remittitur.