Opinion ID: 12
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Trial Error from the Jury Verdict Forms Affecting All Remaining Claims

Text: This leaves the jury verdict finding Vieira alone liable on the state wiretap claims. Plaintiffs were awarded $526,700 in statutory damages under § 12-5.1-13 and $1 each in nominal damages under § 11-35-21. Also remaining is the state privacy act verdict against all three defendants, for which each plaintiff received $1 in nominal damages. How we resolve these issues on appeal affects the award of attorney's fees against the defendants. Defendants argue that the two jury verdict forms were improper because they did not require the jury to make separate findings as to each plaintiff against each defendant for the state wiretap act and the state privacy act claims. [30] Defendants preserved this issue with timely objections at trial. A verdict form must be `reasonably capable of an interpretation that would allow the jury to address all factual issues essential to judgment.' Sanchez-Lopez v. Fuentes-Pujols, 375 F.3d 121, 134 (1st Cir.2004) (quoting Sheek v. Asia Badger, Inc., 235 F.3d 687, 699 (1st Cir. 2000)). We examine the verdict forms, along with the court's jury instructions, to determine whether the issues were fairly presented to the jury. Id.; Sheek, 235 F.3d at 699. Our review is de novo. Sanchez-Lopez, 375 F.3d at 134-35. Plaintiffs' claims under the state wiretap and privacy acts, as instructed to the jury, required individual findings with respect to each plaintiff against each defendant. The jury verdict forms repeatedly failed to differentiate between the plaintiffs on various counts, forcing the jury to choose between finding for all or none of the plaintiffs and relieving individual plaintiffs of the burden of proving their own cases. We hold that this prevented the wiretap and privacy claims from being fairly presented to the jury. a. Plaintiffs' Claims Had to be Proved Individually We assume arguendo that the instructions, as worded, adequately presented the law and instead focus on what those instructions required plaintiffs to prove. Under the state wiretap act claims, plaintiffs had to show that their telephone calls had been intercepted, R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 11-35-21, 12-5.1-13, and that defendants had done so intentionally. [31] Thus, the defendants could not be liable to any plaintiff whose calls they did not intentionally record. Cf. Reynolds v. Spears, 93 F.3d 428, 432 (8th Cir.1996) (affirming summary judgment for defendants on a similar provision of the federal wiretap act, 18 U.S.C. § 2520(a), when plaintiffs relied solely on a jury finding for a co-plaintiff to show their calls were intercepted and provided no evidence of their own). Defendants also had defenses that the jury had to consider. The first, which the court only allowed for one of the two wiretap claims, under § 12-5.1-13, was a law enforcement defense. Under the wiretap act, defendants had a defense for intercepted calls on [a]ny telephone ... being used by ... an investigative or law enforcement officer in the ordinary course of his or her duties. R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-5.1-1(7)(i). As instructed by the court, this required a finding as to whether defendants were law enforcement officers and whether or not the calls were recorded in the ordinary course of duties. [32] If nothing else, the jury would have had to determine whether each defendant was a law enforcement officer and whether the individual plaintiffs' telephone calls were recorded in the ordinary course of law enforcement duties. Cf. Amati, 176 F.3d at 955 (considering whether recordings on a specific police department private line fell within the equivalent federal law enforcement exception). [33] Finally, for the wiretap claim under R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-5.1-13, plaintiffs had to individually show the number of days that their calls had actually been recorded for purposes of calculating statutory damages. See id. § 12-5.1-13(a)(1). On the privacy act claim, each plaintiff had to establish both that he or she had an objectively reasonable expectation of, or entitlement to, his or her calls being private, id. § 9-1-28.1(1)(i), and that defendants's recording of calls actually violated that expectation, id. § 9-1-28.1(b). Especially because the evidence at trial was that plaintiffs used their phones for varying purposes and under varying circumstances, both of these elements required individualized findings. Cf. O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 718, 107 S.Ct. 1492 (holding under the analogous Fourth Amendment right to privacy that whether an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy must be addressed on a case-by-case basis); Vega-Rodriguez v. P.R. Tel. Co., 110 F.3d 174, 179 (1st Cir.1997).