Opinion ID: 668237
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Damage Awards Against Hale and the City

Text: 44 Defendants contend that the compensatory and punitive damages awarded by the jury were not supported by sufficient evidence, primarily because Sloman failed to show that the alleged constitutional violations were the proximate cause of his injuries. Sloman counters that defendants waived their right to appeal this issue when they failed to make a motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b) at the close of the evidence at trial. We must address this contention as an initial matter. 45 A rule 50(b) motion for a judgment as a matter of law is a threshold requirement for a later motion for a JNOV. Lifshitz v. Walter Drake & Sons, Inc., 806 F.2d 1426, 1428 (9th Cir.1986). If no motion for directed verdict has been made, a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict has no legal effect. Collins v. City of San Diego, 841 F.2d 337, 342 (9th Cir.1988); see Williams v. Fenix & Scisson, Inc., 608 F.2d 1205, 1207 (9th Cir.1979). Defendants claim, however, that under Cabrales v. County of Los Angeles, 864 F.2d 1454 (9th Cir.), vacated on other grounds, 490 U.S. 1087, 109 S.Ct. 2425, 104 L.Ed.2d 982 (1989), we may nonetheless review the jury's verdict for plain error. Cabrales discussed the only exception to the rule that a party who has not made a rule 50(b) motion cannot question the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal: 46 Only where there is such plain error apparent on the face of the record that failure to review would result in a manifest miscarriage of justice should the appellate court analyze the evidence. 47 Id. at 1459 (citation omitted). The Cabrales court noted that this was an extraordinarily deferential standard of review, under which an appellate court should not scrutinize the sufficiency of the evidence unless there is an absolute absence of evidence to support the jury's verdict. Id. 48 Since there was testimony at trial regarding various symptoms suffered by Sloman, as well as the connection between them and the alleged incidents of harassment by Hale, there was not an absolute absence of evidence to support the jury's finding that Hale's and the City's violations of Sloman's civil rights caused the injuries for which it compensated him. We therefore must affirm the damage awards. 13