Opinion ID: 333194
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the reduction of the judgment

Text: 18 Baughman does not dispute the rule that a plaintiff who has recovered an item of damage from one co-conspirator may not again recover the same item of damage from another conspirator. Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research Inc., 401 U.S. 321, 348, 91 S.Ct. 795, 28 L.Ed.2d 77 (1971). Nor does either Baughman or Wilson dispute that the set-off is made against the trebled damage award, not merely against the compensatory amount determined by the jury. Flintkote Co. v. Lysfjord, 246 F.2d 368, 397--98 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 355 U.S. 835, 78 S.Ct. 54, 2 L.Ed.2d 46 (1957). Both sides, however, contend that the district court erred in computing the amount of the set-off. Wilson urges that $60,000 should have been deducted from $75,000 and judgment entered for $15,000 at most. Baughman argues that the set-off of $49,800 which the district court allowed was too high. This disagreement arises out of a trial ruling to which no objection was made. 19 At the second trial the court at Wilson's request, and without objection from Baughman, instructed the jury to award damages only for the period after which Wilson joined the conspiracy. 4 There was evidence that a conspiracy existed as early as February, 1971, but there was no proof of participation by Wilson prior to August 24, 1971. The district court concluded that the jury's determination of damages in the amount of $25,000 covered damages for conspiratorial conduct after August 24, 1971, whereas the settlement by Cooper-Jarrett and Matlack covered damages for the period from February, 1971 forward. The court reasoned that the Zenith rule would not require a deduction for that part of the settlement attributable to damages which occurred prior to August 24, 1971. This required the court to attempt to reconstruct the total amount of damages suffered as a result of the conspiracy. There was evidence in the record to establish Buaghman's loss of earnings for the entire life of the conspiracy, dating back to February, 1971. The court calculated a net earnings loss for the period from February, 1971 to August 24, 1971 of $5,200 and added that amount to the jury award of $25,000, to arrive at total damage of $30,200. Since about 83 per cent of the total damages was incurred after August 24, 1971, the court concluded that only 83 per cent of the $60,000 settlement, or $49,800, should be attributed to that damage period. It therefore deducted $49,800 from the $75,000 judgment, which yielded a net of $25,200. 20 The amount of credit to be applied against the judgment to reflect the proceeds of the settlement was a matter for the trial court to decide in the first instance. The court's findings of fact that $5,200 in damages was incurred prior to August 24, 1971 is not clearly erroneous. The jury verdict establishes the damages for the later period. Thus we must accept that the total of damages is $30,200. The only open question is what calculations should be made in arriving at the proper Zenith credit against the $75,000 judgment. 21 The theory on which the court in Flintkote Co. v. Lysfjord, supra, held that the credit for the payment from the settling conspirators should be applied to the trebled damage award rather than to the compensatory award prior to trebling was that all co-conspirators were liable for all elements of damage including the punitive damage resulting from trebling, and that the settlement payments must therefore be credited against all elements of damage included in the judgment. The district court purported to apply the Flintkote rule, but erred in one particular. It is true that the settling conspirators paid in compromise of their entire liability, including liability for the period from February, 1971 to August 24, 1971. But they were exposed to liability not only for single damages for that period, but for treble damages. Their payment discharged that total liability, not merely their potential liability for $5,200 in compensatory damages. Compliance with the Flintkote theory requires the following calculation: 22 Pre-August 24, 1971 damages, trebled $15,600 Post-August 24, 1971 damages, trebled $75,000 ------- Total damages $90,600 Credit $60,000 ------- Net uncompensated damages, trebled $30,600 23 By not taking into account the settling conspirators' potential liability for treble damages for the pre-August 24, 1971 wage losses, the district court allowed too great a credit against the $75,000 judgment. Judgment should have been entered for $30,600, representing the difference between the trebled verdict and the pro rata share of the settlement fund. 24 We have some difficulty with either the district court's approach or our own, because while we can say with some confidence that the district court's calculation of $5,200 is not clearly erroneous, it is not at all certain that the court's calculation and the jury's verdict were arrived at by comparable methods. 5 Nevertheless, the Flintkote rule that the settling defendants settled their treble damage liability seems to us sound. Because the court in its charge to the jury divided the damage periods, some means of apportioning the settlement between the two periods must, in the absence of any agreement, be devised. That which we have set out seems as fair as the circumstances in this record permit. 25 Wilson argues that by apportioning any part of the settlement to pre-August 24, 1971 liability the court is permitting Baughman to go behind the jury verdict fixing his total damages at $75,000, and in effect to increase the verdict to over $90,000. It urges that Baughman should not, by having the court manipulate the amount of the credit, overcome his failure to object to the court's charge that Wilson was liable only for damages incurred after it joined the conspiracy. But Wilson was at least equally responsible for that erroneous charge. Indeed, it was given at its request. If the charge is a correct statement of the law (a matter on which we do not rule) then the court certainly was required to attribute some part of the settlement to the earlier period. If it is an incorrect statement of the law Wilson is in no better position than Baughman to complain about the court's effort to enter a judgment which avoids duplicate recoveries, but permits recovery of all that the jury found to be due.