Opinion ID: 1407450
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: impeachment of jury verdict

Text: After judgment, the defendant moved for a new trial, claiming that the trial judge erred in his conduct of the trial. The trial judge denied the motion. Thereafter, one of the jurors wrote a letter to the trial judge, suggesting the possibility that the jury may have reached a quotient verdict. Copies of the letter were forthwith sent to the attorneys for the parties. The defendant promptly filed a motion for (a) reconsideration of the order denying a new trial, (b) an order permitting defendant to amend its motion for a new trial to include misconduct of the jury, and (c) an order summoning the trial jury for questioning. The defendant's final assignment of error in the Court of Appeals was that the Multnomah County presiding judge erred in refusing to consider and rule upon defendant's motion for reconsideration of its motion for new trial, and for the questioning of jurors concerning the alleged quotient verdict; and for inclusion of misconduct of the jury and illegality of the verdict as additional grounds for a new trial. The defendant contends that ORS 3.314(2) [8] requires a judge of the circuit court for Multnomah County to act when a judge in any department is absent or disabled, and that in the absence of the trial judge, the decision of the presiding judge that he was not going to tinker with another judge's case constituted a failure to act pursuant to the statute. We need not construe ORS 3.314(2). For purposes of this opinion we will treat the presiding judge's ruling as a denial of the defendant's motion. The defendant sought to have jurors questioned regarding the purportedly illegal verdict and eventually to have the court consider this testimony in determining whether the juror misconduct resulted in an illegal verdict requiring a new trial under ORS 17.610 (1977). The juror's letter, in part, read: Dear Sir: On March 28, 1978 I was on the jury sitting on the case of George Blanton v.s. the Union Pacific Rail Road. During the deliberations the jury was divided six against six at completely opposite figures  the highs being from $350,000 to $650,000 and the lows from $10,000 to $50,000. It was the understanding of all of the jurors that we must reach a decision on some sort of offer but after having voted fifteen times all twelve were adament [sic] in changing, in fact the low votes became lower while the high votes either stayed the same or went up. Arguments were quite heated but we still felt, due to the wording on the verdict form, that it was our duty to reach a conclusion. Had this not been the first experience on jury duty for most of us, I'm sure the verdict would have been much different. I realize now that we should have requested further instruction. Our decision was reached by taking an average of the low votes, an average of the high votes and then averaging the two. This matter has been a cause of great concern to me because I feel that the compromise we made was unfair and possibly not legal. After the close of the trial I found that my feelings were shared by several of my fellow jurors. In fact, it was an unsatisfactory verdict to almost all. I trust that this information may help in future trials if not in this one.   . The defendant contends that the letter reveals that the jury reached a quotient verdict, which is illegal under Oregon law. A quotient verdict is a verdict reached pursuant to a jury's agreement to be bound by the figure derived by adding each juror's assessment of damages and then dividing that sum by the number of jurors. See Hendricks v. P.E.P. Co., 134 Or. 366, 372, 289 P. 369, 292 P. 1094 (1930); Annot., 8 A.L.R.3d 335, § 1(a) (1966). This court and a majority of other courts have held that such verdicts are invalid and constitute misconduct on the part of jurors for which a new trial may be granted. E.g., Hendricks at 134 Or. 371-372, 289 P. 369, 292 P. 1094; Annot., 8 A.L.R.3d 335, § 3 (1966). It is equally well established that, with but a few exceptions, `[a]ffidavit[s] of jurors will not be received to impeach their verdict.' Carson v. Brauer, 234 Or. 333, 343, 382 P.2d 79, 84 (1963), quoting from Cline v. Broy, 1 Or. 89, 90 (1854). In State v. Gardner, 230 Or. 569, 371 P.2d 558 (1962), we stated the rule in its accurate form:    [A] verdict is impeachable if justice demands that it be set aside.    Id. at 573-574, 371 P.2d at 560. The defendant contends that the present case falls within the language of Gardner. We do not agree. We explained our holding in Gardner in Carson v. Brauer, supra , as follows:    While jurors' affidavits are receivable in evidence in the sense that the trial court should permit them to be filed, affidavits which disclose nothing more than oral misconduct during the jury's deliberations cannot impeach a verdict. In order to make plain the meaning of the rule, we will restate it: The affidavit of a juror concerning utterances of other jurors during the deliberations or at any other material time cannot warrant the impeachment of a verdict. The kind of misconduct of a juror that will be considered in an attack upon a verdict by a juror's affidavit within the rule set forth in the Gardner and Imlah cases is misconduct that amounts to fraud, bribery, forcible coercion or any other obstruction of justice that would subject the offender to a criminal prosecution therefor. We do not necessarily use the words `fraud,' `bribery,' `forcible coercion,' and `obstruction of justice' in a purely technical sense, but as words that denote such serious breach of the juror's duties that the trial judge would be justified in citing him for nothing less than a contempt of court. Clark v. United States, 289 U.S. 1, 53 S.Ct. 465, 77 L.Ed. 993, is an illustration. When this court said in the Gardner case that affidavits by jurors may impeach verdicts where there was misconduct of such a serious nature as to have deprived a party of a `fair trial,' the words `fair trial' may perhaps mislead some one.    To the extent that the `fair trial' language in the Gardner case may have been understood as a departure from the rule that oral misconduct is not a ground for impeachment, the case must be considered as modified by the statement herein made. 234 Or. at 345-46, 382 P.2d at 85-86. Neither Gardner nor Carson v. Brauer, supra , changed the law of this state with respect to quotient verdicts: juror affidavits may not be used to impeach such a verdict. E.g., Fuller v. Blanc, 160 Or. 50, 58-59, 77 P.2d 440, 83 P.2d 434 (1938); Hendricks v. P.E.P. Co., supra . [9] The competing judicial principles which must be considered were set out and discussed by Justice Holman in this court's decision in Schmitz v. Yant, 242 Or. 308, 312-316, 409 P.2d 346 (1965). We see no reason to reiterate that analysis here. Suffice it to say that as between the conflicting principles of allowing the trial judge wide discretion in granting new trials and of protecting the jury system as an effective method of deciding disputes this court believes the latter to be of the greater consequence. Id. at 314, 409 P.2d at 350. Whether the defendant's motion was addressed to the trial judge or to the presiding judge, its purpose was the same  to obtain an order permitting examination of the jurors with a view toward consideration of their testimony, by affidavit or otherwise, to impeach their verdict. The motion was properly denied. We have considered all of defendant's assignments of error. Reversed.