Opinion ID: 12
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Lack of Individuation in the Verdict Forms Prevented the Jury from Making Essential Findings

Text: The jurors were given two verdict forms, one for the 116 Walden firefighter plaintiffs and one for the nineteen Chmura police plaintiffs. The forms addressed the state wiretap and privacy act claims similarly. For the state wiretap act claims the verdict forms asked the jury whether each defendant  Vieira, Lennon, and the City  sought to intercept or procured another to intercept any of Plaintiffs' telephone calls made or received at the Providence Public Safety Complex. (Emphasis added). The forms allowed the jury to find for each defendant or for all plaintiffs against each defendant. The verdict forms then presented the defenses. For the law enforcement defense, the forms only gave the jury the choice of finding for all plaintiffs or for all defendants and made no distinction as to types of calls. The forms next instructed the jury, if it found for plaintiffs on the previous questions, to determine how many days between May 23, 2002, and February 10, 2003, each plaintiff had established by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she had telephone calls to or from the Complex that were recorded. Each verdict form then listed plaintiffs' names with a space to provide a number of days. The verdict forms for the privacy act count only asked the jury to find either individually for each defendant or for all plaintiffs against each defendant. These verdict forms did not fairly present the issues to the jury because they deprived the jury of the ability to differentiate between plaintiffs on nearly every element. Instead, the forms assumed that the only meaningful distinction among the plaintiffs was whether they were part of the Walden firefighter or Chmura police groups, requiring the jury to find for all members of the groups, or for none of them. While findings for all plaintiffs might be permitted in a class action, this case was not a class action and there were no findings as to commonality of claims. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(3) (allowing plaintiffs to proceed as a class if the court finds that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate). Under the wiretap act, the forms required the jury to find for all plaintiffs in each group if any of them had their calls intentionally recorded, even if the jury found that only some of the plaintiffs met their burden of showing their calls were intentionally recorded. Thus, the jury found the defendants liable to all 116 Walden plaintiffs despite the jury's apparently inconsistent factual finding that seventy-one of them had failed to prove that their calls were recorded on any days. [34] Further, the forms prevented the jury from making essential findings on defendants' law enforcement defense, even though defendants played different roles in the recordings and plaintiffs' testimony made clear that their use of the telephone system varied. [35] The jury could very well have found that some lines or calls were being recorded in the ordinary course of law enforcement but that others were not. The all-or-nothing structure of the verdict forms made it impossible for the jury to make this distinction. On the privacy act, the lack of differentiation in the forms prevented the claim from being fairly presented to the jury because the forms forced the jury to treat plaintiffs in each group as having the same expectation of privacy. The evidence at trial showed that plaintiffs in each group used their phones to make widely differing types of calls under differing circumstances, and the jury could have found that their expectations of privacy differed accordingly. [36] Further, the jury's inability to make individual findings, as under the wiretap claims, forced the jury to find for all plaintiffs even if not all of them proved their calls were recorded, as was the case with seventy-one of the Walden plaintiffs. The errors were not harmless. [37] The error with the forms affects both the awards against Vieira under the state wiretap act and the award against all three defendants under the privacy act; it requires a remand for a new trial on both. [38]
There are other claims that we need not address, including defendants' claims of error in the court's jury instructions and evidentiary rulings. Our disposition moots the plaintiffs' appeal. Because plaintiffs are no longer prevailing parties, the award of attorney's fees is vacated. The defendants' appeal from the amount of the award is moot. On remand the district court should dismiss all federal claims, [39] the state constitutional claims, and the state wiretap claims against the City with prejudice. The court should dismiss without prejudice the state wiretap claims against Vieira, and the privacy act claim against the two individuals and the City, so the claims can be brought in state court, which is the preferred forum for any interpretation of state law issues remaining. Accordingly we vacate the jury verdicts and direct entry of judgment of dismissal with prejudice of all federal claims and of the state wiretap claim against Lennon. We direct entry of dismissal without prejudice to proceedings in the state courts on the state wiretap claims against Vieira and the state privacy act claims against all three defendants. The award of attorney's fees is vacated. No costs are awarded on appeal. So ordered.