Court Opinion

ID: 9607045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:55:01.279217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:31.360091
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority acknowledges that the Martinez children were entitled to some damages. Because the damage issue had to be submitted to the jury for a determination of the precise amount, it was concluded that the grant of a directed verdict as to “some” damages would not have taken the damage issue away from the jury. But that conclusion misses the point that the granting of the motion would have removed from the jury the issue of awarding no damages.
True, the failure to grant the directed verdict would not have been prejudicial had the jury been properly instructed on the damage issue. But as pointed out in the opinion, the jury was not properly instructed. It was told to determine “what injury, if any the plaintiff received” and “the amount of damages, if any”. This left to the jury the very issue which should have been removed, i. e. the question of de*1209termining whether there were any compen-sable injuries or resulting damages.
Those errors were compounded by Instructions 20 and 23 which by stating "If you should find that the plaintiff is entitled to a verdict . . . ” again suggest-
ed that the jury could find that the plaintiffs were not entitled to any award. All of these instructions were objected to by counsel for the Martinez’.
I agree with that portion of the majority opinion which disapproves of the impeachment of a verdict by the testimony or affidavit of a juror. Nevertheless, without considering the affidavit, we are cognizant of the result which may occur when a trial court refuses to grant a properly based motion for a directed verdict as to some damages and compounds that refusal by instructions permitting the jury to consider the award of no damages. The trial court properly instructed the jurors that it was their duty “to consult with one another” and “to deliberate with a view to reaching an agreement”, if they could do so without violence to individual judgment. In such consultation and during the course of their efforts to reach an agreement, the fact that jurors were improperly permitted to contend that the Martinez boys were entitled to no damages could well have had a substantial effect on the amount of the verdict.1
In denying Martinez’ motion for a new trial, the trial judge acknowledged that the awards were at the lower end of the range of possible verdicts. The situation discussed in Bachner v. Pearson2 is thus in-apposite since the substantial awards of from $22,500 to $35,000 there led to the conclusion that the error in submitting instructions which allowed the jury to make no award for damages could not have substantially prejudiced the plaintiffs.
I do not see how we can say with fair assurance that “the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error (s)” and “that substantial rights were not affected”.3 Accordingly, I would remand for a retrial on the damage issue.

. Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 760, 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557, 1564, 1566-67 (1946).

. 479 P.2d 319 (Alaska 1970).

. 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. at 1248, 90 L.Ed. at 1566-67.