Court Opinion

ID: 9486894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:03:32.119724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:59.967603
License: Public Domain

BEAM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Contrary to the court’s contention, supra at 1442, there is really nothing difficult about the reconciliation issue in this ease.1 The verdict can be reconciled in at least two ways.2 Because courts must reconcile seemingly internally inconsistent verdicts, “by exegesis if necessary,” the district court’s resubmission of a reconcilable verdict was error. Gallick v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R., 372 U.S. 108, 119, 83 S.Ct. 659, 666, 9 L.Ed.2d 618 (1963); Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U.S. 355, 364, 82 S.Ct. 780, 786, 7 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962); Lockard v. Missouri Pac. R.R., 894 F.2d 299, *1446304-05 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 847, 111 S.Ct. 134, 112 L.Ed.2d 102 (1990). A court’s duty to reconcile a verdict is well established, and failure to do so deprives Williams of the jury verdict to which she is entitled by the Seventh Amendment. Leaving this error uncorrected deprives Williams of substantial rights and works a miscarriage of justice. Thus, if necessary, I would hold that the district court committed plain error that' should be addressed regardless of any purported waiver. United States v. Ojeda, 23 F.3d 1473, 1476-77 (8th Cir.1994); United States v. Martin, 933 F.2d 609, 611 (8th Cir.1991).
The court’s reliance on Williams’s purported waiver is not only hypertechnical and wrong, it works a great injustice. Offering ample evidence of egregious misconduct by employees of KETV, Williams won her verdict fair and square. The following scenario has robbed her of it.
After receiving the verdict, the district judge excused himself from the jury’s presence, and telephoned the parties’ attorneys. The judge informed the attorneys that the jury had delivered its verdicts. Because of the perceived need to resubmit the ease to the jury, the judge properly insisted on the confidentiality of the discussion. The record clearly indicates that by the time of the phone call, the judge had already made a decision to resubmit the issue of damages to the jury, and was simply asking the attorneys for ideas on how the resubmission should be handled. Faced with an abrupt and unexpected fait accompli, Williams’s attorney properly focused her comments on the manner of resubmission. She did, however, tell the judge that he need not resubmit the verdict to resolve the perceived problem with the damages. She also offered the judge an explanation about how the jury may have reached their damages award through a misunderstanding of the damages instructions. Williams’s attorney also vigorously argued that any resubmission should be on the issue of damages only, in order to avoid giving the jury the impression that the judge disagreed •with their finding of liability. Finally, she clearly advised the district judge of the impropriety of resubmitting the entire verdict without a specific explanation as to the problem. Thus, the district court was well apprised that Williams believed resubmission was unnecessary, that there was a way to reconcile the verdict without resubmission, and that Williams feared that resubmission without a specific explanation would result in the jury being coerced into finding no liability. Therefore, reaching the issue of the consistency of the verdict in this appeal results in no “ambush” of the district court. See United States v. 1966 Beechcraft Aircraft Model King Air A90, 777 F.2d 947, 951 (4th Cir.1985). The district judge’s resubmission, combined with this court’s action in sua sponte raising and deciding the waiver issue, deprives Williams of her fairly won verdict.
Our circuit has yet to consider whether mere inadvertence may result in the waiver of a party’s right to a verdict in her favor. This circumstance evidently arises only rarely, as most courts assiduously attempt reconciliation before resubmitting a verdict. The court’s analysis is inadequate to support the waiver rule it adopts. As the court notes, many of the cases on which it relies involve the situation where a party has failed to object to entry of an arguably inconsistent verdict for an opponent before the discharge and dispersal of the jury. The situation before us involves entirely different dynamics and therefore different policy considerations. In the discharge situation, concerns of judicial economy militate against excusing any waiver. Chances are, juries have not only dispersed, but have also discussed the evidence and their deliberations with others after discharge. A whole new trial would likely be required if the waiver rule was not enforced against those who failed to object to the court’s acceptance of a truly inconsistent verdict. Further, courts have no duty to recognize and reject sua sponte internally inconsistent verdicts. Likewise, parties have no independent Seventh Amendment right that only consistent verdicts be entered against them, and are deprived of nothing if they fail to object to such a verdict in a timely fashion.
In the situation where a consistent verdict is erroneously resubmitted, the dynamics are different. Judicial economy does not weigh *1447in favor of declaring a waiver, as there are no implications for judicial economy in the act of reinstating the verdict. No jury needs to be recalled, the parties are not subjected to any extra expense or inconvenience. And, courts do have an independent duty to recognize and enter internally consistent verdicts, and to reconcile those that may initially seem internally inconsistent. Thus, resubmission of a consistent verdict amounts to an abuse of discretion by the resubmitting court. Finally, and most importantly, there is an important and inviolate constitutional right which is being destroyed.
In determining whether to apply a waiver rule to the resubmission of a favorable internally consistent jury verdict, the policies elaborated in the Federal Rules should guide us. As the Federal Rules state: “The right of trial by jury as declared by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution or as given by a statute of the United States shall be preserved to the parties inviolate.” Fed. R.Civ.P. 38(a) (emphasis added). While this right may be waived unless asserted in a timely fashion, once asserted it may not be waived without a “written stipulation filed with the court or by an oral stipulation made in open court[3] and entered in the record.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 39(a). This prophylactic rule is intended to prevent the inadvertent waiver of a “fundamental” right by careless statements or conduct. E.g., Dell'Orfano v. Romano, 962 F.2d 199, 202 (2nd Cir.1992); White v. McGinnis, 903 F.2d 699, 703 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 903, 111 S.Ct. 266, 112 L.Ed.2d 223 (1990); Hanlon v. Providence College, 615 F.2d 535, 537-39 (1st Cir.1980). Waiver is therefore not to be lightly inferred when the procedures outlined in the Federal Rules have not been followed. Id. The resubmission of a consistent verdict is analogous to a judge unilaterally declaring that a plaintiff has withdrawn a demand for a jury trial. In both cases, the judge inserts himself into the factfinding process after the demand for a jury trial has been made. Therefore, such a resubmission should be viewed through a similar analytical framework. Williams demanded her Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, and even won a favorable verdict. Thus, waiver should not be lightly inferred.
There are cases in which waiver of a jury trial has been inferred despite failure to follow the procedures in Rule 39(a). However, those cases involve situations where parties have completely litigated their cause in a bench trial without mentioning their demand for a jury trial. See, Dell'Orfano, 962 F.2d at 202; White, 903 F.2d at 703. A waiver is inferred in these situations because there is no danger that the party conducted an entire trial inadvertently, and because it would be unfair to burden the opposing side with a second trial and the concomitant preparation necessary therefor. Id.; Hanlon, 615 F.2d at 538-39.
Unlike the bench trial situation, when a consistent verdict is resubmitted, there has generally been no continuous and sustained course of conduct from which the court can confidently infer that any waiver was not inadvertent. There are no concerns of judicial economy involved as all that is required to fix the mistake is to enter judgment on the initial verdict. A refusal to imply a waiver imposes no burden, unfair or otherwise, on the other party. Therefore, and especially since such “waiver is not lightly to be inferred,” there is no reason to hold that resubmission without objection suffices to deprive a party of a verdict in her favor. Gargiulo v. Delsole, 769 F.2d 77, 79 (2d Cir.1985). I believe that all the concerns underlying Rule 39(a) point to a finding that the resubmission here, which was essentially a deprivation of the asserted Seventh Amendment right of the prevailing party, was plain error.
There are only four cases which give any support to the court’s waiver proposition. Of those four cases, three are from the same circuit. The oldest ease announces the waiver rule without considering the Seventh Amendment issue, in fact, without any analysis whatsoever. Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Dial, 311 F.2d 595, 599 (5th Cir.1963). The second case, Turchio, on which the court relies primarily, involved resubmission of a jury verdict that the Second Circuit found to be truly inconsistent, and therefore provides no insight for our case. Turchio v. D/S A/S Den Norske Africa, 509 F.2d 101, 106 (2d Cir.1974) (a new trial was ordered due to the *1448jury’s apparent confusion, Safeway mentioned in dicta). The third case, Ballou, involves an inconsistency between answers to special interrogatories and the general verdict. Ballou v. Henri Studios, Inc., 656 F.2d 1147, 1156 (5th Cir.1981) (new trial ordered on other grounds). The Ballou court declined to consider whether resubmission was appropriate because there was an obvious inconsistency in the verdict and the prevailing party failed to object. There is, however, no analysis other than a citation to Safeway. The last case, Perricone v. Kansas City S. Ry., 704 F.2d 1376, 1380 (5th Cir.1983), analogizes the resubmission of a consistent verdict to the waiver of a jury trial by failure to make a timely demand for such a trial. This is a very poor analogy indeed, considering the care required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the withdrawal of such a demand once it is made. A party with a jury verdict in hand has certainly exercised her fundamental Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, and thus the more stringent waiver concerns evinced by Rule 39(a) should come into play. Frankly, the cases cited by the court simply miss the boat, and should not be considered a basis for deciding this unique issue in this circuit.
Finally, the court does not adequately address the issue, clearly preserved and argued by Williams, of the propriety of the method by which the district court resubmitted the verdict. When resubmitting a verdict, a court must be very careful not to impose its will on the jury and thus deprive a party of her right to a jury trial. Nance v. Gulf Oil Corp., 817 F.2d 1176, 1179 (5th Cir.1987); Perricone, 704 F.2d at 1378; see Karl v. Burlington Northern R.R., 880 F.2d 68, 73 (8th Cir.1989). Here, the district court failed to carefully explain to the jury the nature of the perceived problem with the verdict. Rather, it simply told the jury that its verdict on the first claim, for KETV, was acceptable, but that its verdict on the second claim, for Williams, was “obvious[ly]” inconsistent with the court’s instructions. Transcript at 670. The court then reread the jury the instructions on both liability and damages, reading the damages portion louder. The court expressly intended that the louder reading of the damages instructions would alert the jury that the problem was within their damages assessment rather than with their liability assessment. Transcript at 664-65. Of course, the jury had already been specifically instructed to disregard any inflections in the judge’s voice as guidance for their deliberations. Jury Inst. 1. That the same jury which had awarded Williams substantial punitive damages for KETV’s egregious misconduct only minutes earlier, returned shortly after resubmission with a verdict for KETV demonstrates the inherent coercion and impropriety of this resubmission. Thus, even had this verdict been internally inconsistent, the manner of resubmission was an abuse of discretion.4 This abuse of discretion denied Williams her jury verdict and, derivatively, her Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury. At the very least, then, the case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial on the § 1981 claim.
I respectfully dissent.

. The jury’s verdict arose in the following context. The jury was instructed to complete the damages portion of the verdict form only if it found KETV's decision not to hire Williams for the 1988 job was race based. The verdict form permitted the assessment of "actual damages” (liquidated damages), compensatory damages and punitive damages. Nominal damages were to be awarded if Williams’s damages did "not have monetary value.” Jury Inst. 16. Actual damages were defined to "include wages or fringe benefits you find the plaintiff would have earned in her employment with the defendant if she had been hired as a full-time production assistant in October, 1988, minus the amount of earnings and benefits from other employment received by the plaintiff during that time.” Jury Inst. 15 (emphasis added). Jury Instruction 8 set forth the stipulated difference in salary between Williams’s part-time position and the full-time position at issue. No instruction specified that the stipulated wage differential was to be considered Williams’s “actual damages.” Indeed, the jury was specifically instructed that it should weigh the evidence to determine the actual damages Williams sustained. Jury Inst. 15. As indicated, the jury awarded no "actual” or liquidated damages, $10,000 compensatory damages, $1.00 nominal damages, and $35,000 punitive damages.

. First, the record established that Williams consistently worked weekends after 1988. The jury could have believed that these weekend hours created a wash between Williams's part-time earnings and the salary she would have earned as a full-time production assistant. Thus, they awarded no actual damages. The jury also awarded Williams $10,000 "compensatory” damages, which are defined as the “sum [which] will reasonably compensate her for the harm to her reputation, personal humiliation and mental anguish, if any, which she has experienced as a result of [KETV] not hiring her....” Jury Inst. 16, ¶ 1. In other words, damages for harm which is nonmonetary in nature. Then, reading the nominal damages instruction to award $1.00 for "damages [without] monetary value” to mean damages nonmonetary in nature, the jury acted consistently with its compensatory but no actual damages determination in awarding her $1.00. Finally, in response to KETV's "extraordinary," “evil,” and "callously indifferent” misconduct, the jury awarded Williams $35,000 punitive damages. See Jury Inst. 16.
A second internally consistent explanation of the jury's verdict is that they found KETV’s section 1981 violation to be its race-based failure even to consider her application in retaliation for her prior discrimination claim. Section 1981, as interpreted by Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 182, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2375, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989), requires that black citizens be extended the same right to make contracts as white citizens. That right surely encompasses the right to have one's application or bid at least considered in the first instance and then, perhaps, rejected on the merits. The denial of the right even to compete is a real injury in itself, even if one cannot show that one would have won the competition. See id. at 186-88, 109 S.Ct. at 2377-79 (plaintiff need not show she was the best-qualified candidate to establish that the reasons defendant advanced for its failure to contract were pretextual); see also Northeastern Fla. Chapter of Assoc. Gen. Contractors v. Jacksonville, - U.S. -, —, 113 S.Ct. 2297, 2303, 124 L.Ed.2d 586 (1993) (denial of the right to compete itself constitutes an injury in fact). Williams presented evidence fairly inferring that KETV's decision not to consider her application was race based. If the jury so found, it would logically award no actual or liquidated damages, and the rest of the verdict would be explained in the same manner as above.

. Here, waiver took place, if at all, in closed and confidential proceedings conducted by telephone.

. The court avoids substantive discussion of this issue by saying that it may have been "preferable as a matter of hindsight” for the district court to have “explained the perceived inconsistency.” Court’s footnote 3, supra. The court seems to miss the point that Williams’s counsel strenuously and correctly objected to the reinstruction approach taken by the district court and made an accurate forecast of the miscarriage of justice that would result.