Opinion ID: 1537010
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Order Granting a New Trial.

Text: Chilson claims that the Superior Court abused its discretion when it granted a new trial on the issues of liability and damages. She argues that the issue of liability was properly and definitively determined by the jury and was not inexorably intertwined with the issue of damages. She further argues that the sanctity of jury verdicts, as recognized by the Delaware Constitution and in Delaware case law, militates against retrying the issue of liability.
Initially, Allstate responds that Chilson's appeal from the Superior Court's grant of a new trial is untimely. Allstate argues that a judgment is final for the purpose of appeal when a timely motion for reargument has been decided and Chilson did not file her appeal within thirty days after the court denied her motion for reargument on the new trial issue. [9] This argument is without merit. Although a motion for reargument following the denial of a motion for a new trial is a final judgment; [10] it is well-established that an order granting a new trial is an interlocutory order. [11] Supreme Court Rule 42(f) governs a party's failure to seek review of an interlocutory order. It states: [t]he failure to seek review of or the refusal of the Court to accept an appeal from an interlocutory order under this rule shall not bar a party from seeking review of such interlocutory order on appeal from the final order, judgment or decree. [12] The final judgment of the Superior Court was entered on December 3, 2008. Chilson filed this appeal on December 16, 2008. Therefore, her appeal of the order granting a new trial was timely, and will be considered on the merits.
We review the grant or denial of a new trial for abuse of discretion. [13] In general, great deference is given to jury verdicts. [14] As long as there is a sufficient evidentiary basis for the amount of the award, the jury's verdict should not be disturbed by a grant of ... a new trial as to damages. A court's assessment of whether a jury's award of damages is within the range supported by the evidence must necessarily be based on the evidence presented to the jury. [15] To determine whether this threshold has been met, we examine the record from the perspective most favorable to the jury's verdict. [16] A decision to set aside a jury verdict warrants appellate deference due to the trial judge's presence at trial and his [or her] duty to see that there is no miscarriage of justice. [17] Superior Court Civil Rule 59(a) provides that a new trial may be granted as to all or any of the parties and on all or part of the issues in an action in which there has been a trial for any of the reasons for which new trials have heretofore been granted in the Superior Court. [18] Although the Rule permits partial retrials, the application of that procedure is by no means automatic. [19] It is applied in the interest of justice and two conditions must be satisfied: (1) [t]he issue to be retried must be clearly severable from the other issues; and (2) it must appear that no injustice will result from limiting the issue on retrial. [20] Even so, a full retrial is ordinarily required only where the issues of liability and damages are interwoven. [21] Assuming the correctness of Chilson's argument that the issues of liability and damages were not inexorably intertwined, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting a new trial on both issues, because remittitur would have been an inadequate remedy. Rule 59 was intended to prevent the retrial of any issue already properly decided and to limit any new trial only to those issues which were incorrectly decided. Where the issue of liability may be severed from the issue of damages, a new trial on the latter issue alone is proper if it can reasonably be said that the liability issue has been determined by the jury. [22] Here, the trial judge found that the extraordinary size of the damages award coupled with the brevity of the deliberations, raised a significant concern as to the jury's diligence in deciding both issues. The disproportionality of the award also raised the trial judge's concern about jury bias, passion, prejudice, or other improper motive. [23] These significant concerns implicate the propriety of the jury's findings both as to negligence and damages. In support of its grant of a new trial, the trial court relied upon two United States Circuit Court of Appeals cases: Wells v. Dallas Independent School District [24] and Kearns v. Keystone Shipping Co. [25] In Wells, the Fifth Circuit addressed the issue of when remittitur is an inadequate remedy. There, a jury awarded a school superintendent $1.9 million after finding his due process rights had been violated when he was terminated. [26] Through remittitur, the district court reduced the award to $250,000. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial, opining that at some point on the scale an excessive award becomes so large that it can no longer be considered merely excessive. At that point, when an award is `so exaggerated as to indicate bias, passion, prejudice, corruption, or other improper motive,' ... remittitur is inadequate and the only proper remedy is a new trial. [27] In Kearns, the First Circuit addressed a case where the jury deliberated for approximately eighty minutes before awarding the plaintiff $99,000 in back pay for age discrimination. The district court granted a new trial, explaining that the jury acted in a casual and non-deliberative manner and that its decision was clearly against the weight of the evidence. [28] The First Circuit affirmed, opining that while brief jury deliberation is not, in itself, sufficient basis to support a new trial motion[,] ... [w]hen brief jury deliberation is coupled with a verdict that is contrary to the great weight of the evidence ... it creates a situation where the [] court has an affirmative duty to set aside the verdict. [29] Here, whether or not the issues of liability and damages were inexorably intertwined, the jury awarded Chilson, in minutes, a surprising $2 million verdict that shocked the trial court's conscience. As a result, the Superior Court properly became concerned about the jury's diligence in considering the negligence issues. The court recognized that an excessive award after only brief jury deliberations may indicate jury bias, passion, prejudice, or some other improper motive. Remittitur in these circumstances would have provided an inadequate remedy. On the record of this case we find no abuse of discretion by the Superior Court in granting a new trial on all issues.