Opinion ID: 852963
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Correct Error

Text: The Pub contends that the trial court erroneously denied its motion to correct error. It argues that the jury's verdict was against the weight of the evidence, that its allocation of fault was contrary to the law and the facts, and that Bartolini's closing argument was improper. [3] Pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 59(J), a trial court is required to take such action as will cure any prejudicial or harmful error, to grant a new trial on a motion to correct error if the court determines that the jury verdict is against the weight of the evidence, and to enter judgment if it determines that the jury verdict is clearly erroneous as contrary to or not supported by the evidence. Ind. Trial Rule 59(J). The standard of appellate review of trial court rulings on motions to correct error is abuse of discretion. Sanchez v. State, 675 N.E.2d 306, 310 (Ind. 1996). The Pub first contends that it is entitled to a new trial because the jury's liability determination was contrary to the weight of the evidence. It argues that there was no evidence to suggest that Todd's and Mattull's criminally willful and malicious aggravated battery would be the natural, probable and foreseeable result of any act or omission by [the Pub]. Br. of Appellant at 31. While Trial Rule 59(J) permits the trial judge to weigh conflicting evidence, it is not intended to invite the trial judge to cavalierly substitute his evaluation of the evidence in place of a contrary evaluation made by the jury. Ingersoll-Rand Corp. v. Scott, 557 N.E.2d 679, 684 (Ind.Ct.App.1990). When, as in this case, the trial court declines to intervene and refuses to set aside the jury verdict, it is not the province of an appellate court to do so unless the verdict is wholly unwarranted under the law and the evidence. Indian Trucking v. Harber, 752 N.E.2d 168, 179 (Ind.Ct.App.2001). Having discussed the conflicting evidence supra, we do not find the jury verdict to be wholly unwarranted. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to find that the jury's liability determination was contrary to the weight of the evidence. The Pub also asserts that it is entitled to a new trial because the jury's allocation of fault is against the weight of the evidence. Br. of Appellant at 34. It argues that the verdict finding the Pub to be 80% at fault and Bartolini's attackers, Todd and Mattull, to each be 10% at fault shocks the conscience and cannot stand, Br. of Appellant at 31, and that it has no possible justification. Br. of Appellant at 32. Bartolini responds in part that, where a claim is based on the breach of a business owner's duty to protect its customers from the reasonably foreseeable criminal acts of others, this duty of care and its corollary remedy would be negated if as a matter of law greater fault must always be allocated to the criminal perpetrators. Under the Indiana Comparative Fault Act, the jury considers the fault of all persons who caused or contributed to cause the alleged injury. Ind. Code § 34-51-2-7(b). The Act declares that the requirements of causal relation apply to the determination of fault. I.C. § 34-51-2-3. This Court recently observed that when a jury finds that the conduct of a second actor was a superseding cause foreclosing the first actor as a proximate cause of the claimed injury, [t]his is simply another way of saying, in comparative fault terms, that the original actor did not cause the harm and receives zero share of any liability. Control Techniques, 762 N.E.2d at 109. Under this view, a jury's assessment of proportional fault includes consideration of the relative degree of causation attributable among the responsible actors. The process by which a jury analyzes the evidence, reconciles the views of its members, and reaches a unanimous decision is inherently subjective and is entitled to maximum deference. The Comparative Fault Act entrusts the allocation of fault to the sound judgment of the fact-finder. While the trial court could well have decided otherwise under the evidence and ordered a new trial in this case, see, e.g., Barnard v. Himes, 719 N.E.2d 862, 866 (Ind.Ct.App.1999), here it exercised its discretionary power in favor of letting the jury allocation stand. We acknowledge that the jury and the trial court in this case may have chosen to allocate a greater proportion of fault to the Pub than to the assailants because the opportunity for the beating would not even have existed had the Pub not failed to restrict Todd from entering its bar or had it taken appropriate action to prevent or stop the attack on its parking lot. In other words, the weight given to the causative role of the Pub may have exceeded that given the relative degree of intentionality of the perpetrators. We therefore decline to find an abuse of discretion by the trial court in refusing to order a new trial on the allocation of damages. The Pub's final argument in favor of a new trial is that Bartolini's closing argument was improper. In particular, the Pub challenges the following portion of Bartolini's closing: But your verdict can also do something else. It can send a message out, loud and clear, to every drinking establishment in our community by implicitly telling them it's their legal, it's their moral, it's their social responsibility to check I.D.'s at the door. Now, it won't always stop an intentional criminal act by an unruly patron. Some kids will slip through the cracks anyway. They've got pretty authentic looking I.D.'s. But it will go a long way towards stopping it, and it is beyond all doubt that it would have stopped it in this case. And so, at this moment, you are the conscience of our community. You can send this message to the restaurants and taverns. It isn't as though we're numbers or robots. We are people. We matter. And you could tell them, You're not going to get away with this. App. of Appellant at 530. Noting that the Pub had not presented an objection to this argument during trial, the trial court denied the motion to correct error without considering this claim. App. of Appellant at 6. To seek appellate relief based on alleged improprieties in a closing argument, a party must promptly interpose and state its objection to the language or argument and request the court to so instruct the jury as to counteract any harmful effect of such language or argument. Ritter v. Stanton, 745 N.E.2d 828, 856 (Ind.Ct.App.2001), trans denied. Having failed to object at trial, the Pub may not present this issue on appeal.