Court Opinion

ID: 9449789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:22:52.323116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:59.098560
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent from the opinion of the majority and would affirm the judgment of the district court.
I have no quarrel with the majority’s conclusion that if Horton was entitled to an $80,000 recovery against Moore-McCormack, the latter was concomitantly entitled to an equal recovery against Rivera. And the district judge should have so charged the jury and thereby avoided the inconsistency of a verdict of $80,000 against Moore-McCormack and a verdict of only $4,300 in favor of Moore-McCormack against Rivera.
However, I can see no reason to permit Moore-McCormack now to raise an objection which it failed to raise on either of the two occasions at the trial on which it had the opportunity to do so. After Judge Dawson had stated in his supplemental charge that judgment could be had against Rivera for “anything that Moore-McCormack Lines has to pay Horton, or any part of it that you think proper,” counsel made no objection, apparently because he had not been listening very carefully and because Judge Dawson suggested that the supplemental charge was essentially the same as the original charge. Again, when the jury returned a verdict for $80,000 in favor of Horton against Moore-McCormack, and for $4,-300 in favor of Moore-McCormack against Rivera, counsel enjoyed full opportunity to request that the jury reconsider its verdict then and there under a proper charge, directing them to enter identical verdicts for Horton and MooreMcCormack.
The time of the courts and juries is far too precious to permit one party to forgo an opportunity to clarify a jury verdict which if undisturbed before the jury is dismissed may well necessitate a new trial. Here the trial consumed ten trial days. The whole tenor of the Rules of Civil Procedure militates in favor of *109correcting errors in the conduct of a jury-trial at a time when the delay and waste attendant upon awaiting appellate reversal may be avoided. Rule 51, for but one example, requires that objections to the court’s instructions to the jury be stated before the jury retires to consider its verdict so that the court, when shown to be in error, may correct itself. Rule 59 (b), which requires that a motion for a new trial be served not later than ten days after entry of judgment, does not grant a party the right to delay in making such objections. Moore-MeCormack’s objections to the inconsistency of the verdicts should have been made before the jury was discharged. Having failed to make the objections then, Moore-McCormack should not be permitted to raise the question later as part of its attempt to get a new trial on all phases of the case.
If we could be reasonably sure that under proper instructions the jury would have returned identical verdicts in the amount of $80,000, I should hesitate to dissent from the majority’s disposition of the case. However, it seems entirely possible that if the jury had been given an opportunity to reconsider its verdict under a mandate to return identical verdicts it would have reached a somewhat different figure. The fact that they returned only a $4,300 verdict against Rivera raises considerable doubt that the verdicts would each have been $80,000 if they had known that the verdicts must be identical. As counsel for neither Horton nor Rivera could reasonably have been expected to raise an objection to the inconsistency of the verdict, and as Moore-McCormack slept on its rights, I can see no justification for disturbing the verdict now.
Finally, I would hold inadmissible the medical report signed by Dr. Claudio Ferreira and sent from St. Joseph Hospital in Lourenco Marques, a seaport in the southern part of Mozambique, Africa. The record before us does not show that it was a hospital record made in the regular course of business and therefore admissible under the Business Records Act. The note suffers from all the inadequacies of hearsay testimony unmitigated by the reliability which such a foundation might provide. Nonetheless, while it was error to receive the exhibit, in light of the extensive medical testimony offered and the comparatively limited use made of the note, I believe that the admission of the note constituted no more than harmless error, both the fact and the nature of Horton’s injuries at the time being essentially undisputed.
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court which awarded Horton $80,000 against Moore-McCormack and Moore-McCormack $4,300 against Rivera.