Court Opinion

ID: 9445268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:24:23.054791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:11.644005
License: Public Domain

HINCKS, Circuit Judge.
The facts relevant to this appeal are not in dispute. They are as follows. The plaintiff, as administratrix brought an action under Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 51-60, against the defendant railroad company, for injuries to and for the death of her son, an employee of the railroad. The defendant in its answer pleaded a release as a bar to the action, claiming that it had paid the plaintiff $2500 in full satisfaction of the claims for which the suit was brought. In her reply, the plaintiff admitted receiving the money but claimed that the release was invalid, and that she at all times was willing, able and ready to return the money to the defendant but her tender thereof had been refused.
At the trial, the Judge referred to the $2500 which the plaintiff received for her release, and charged the jury that only if it found the release invalid could a verdict for plaintiff be given and that if it found “that the purported release in this case is invalid and of no force and effect, * * * you will disregard the purported release in your consideration of this case.” It may be noted that the instruction just quoted was given at the plaintiff’s express request. In his charge as to the damages to be awarded the Judge instructed the jury as to the measure of damages under F. E. L. A. and specified several factors which the jury should consider, such as monetary loss to the plaintiff of support reasonably expected from her deceased son, the plaintiff’s expectancy of life, and present value of a lump sum, and fair compensation for the pain suffered by the deceased son prior to his death. But nowhere in the charge was the jury in*474structed to deduct from the damages as found the sum of $2500 which the plain-, tiff had received for the release which she had signed. No exceptions were taken to the charge as given.
A general verdict of $5000 for the plaintiff was returned. The clerk on November 9, 1955, with the Judge’s approval, entered judgment for $5000 plus costs. On December 14, 1955 execution was issued in the amount of $5000, which was stayed on oral order of the Judge.. Thereafter, on January 12, 1955, the plaintiff moved to vacate the stay of execution and on January 14, 1955, defendant filed a “Motion De Satisfaction of Judgment” reciting its check for $2500 paid to the plaintiff as consideration for the contested release, and praying in effect that the sum of $2500 represented by said check should be applied as part payment against the $5000 judgment.
Judge Smith disposed of both motions, by an order directing (a) that the $2500' release money retained by the plaintiff should be credited against the judgment and (b) that execution might issue for the balance. From this order the plaintiff appeals.
The crux of the problem presented is one of interpretation, viz.: whether (a) Judge Smith correctly interpreted the general verdict of $5000 as importing that $5000 represented the amount of the plaintiff’s damages measured in accordance with his instructions or (b) whether the verdict imported that the jury having fixed the plaintiff’s damages at $7500 had deducted therefrom the sum of $2500 paid for the release. For solution of the problem it is necessary only to examine the charge. As. already noted, the jury was instructed as to the proper measure of damages and was left to assess the damages- without any instruction to make a deduction from the damages found. Moreover, as already noted, the jury was specifically instructed to “disregard the purported release in - your [its] consideration, of the case,” if the release were found- invalid. In the light of these instructions, we think it reasonably clear that the jury, as instructed, disregarded the release and found, the plaintiff’s damages in the principal amount of $5000 only. No one will contend that F. E. L. A. cases constitute an exception to the rule that in the absence of a compelling showing to the contrary a verdict should be interpreted in accordance with a presumption that the jury followed the judge’s instructions. Cf. Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Hadley, 246 U.S. 330, 334, 38 S.Ct. 318, 62 L.Ed. 751.
The plaintiff relies heavily on Seaboard Air Line Railroad Co. v. Gill, 4 Cir., 227 F.2d 64, 67, in which the court interpreted the verdict to represent the amount of damages due the plaintiff after deducting the consideration given for a release which was found to be invalid. But in so far as can be ascertained from the appellate opinion, that interpretation of the verdict depended upon the fact that in that case the verdict had been returned “in answer to-the question * * * as to what amount the plaintiff was entitled to recover of the defendant on account of the death of the deceased.” And in Gill the court stressed the fact that the jury had “passed on the amount due to the plaintiff with the opportunity to take into account the money he had already received.” Thus the Gill case is not apposite to that now before us. For the verdict here was in response to instructions as to the measure of damages under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act and the case was submitted not only without instruction or opportunity to the jury to deduct the release money from the damages but rather with express direction to disregard the purported release. A similar situation appears to have been presented in Mandeville v. Jacobson, 122 Conn. 429, 189 A. 596, where it was held that money paid for -an invalidated release should be credited on the verdict and that judgment was rightly entered only for the balance.
Doubtless it would have been proper for the Judge in his charge to have directed the jury, if it should find the re*475lease invalid, to deduct the release money from the damages to the plaintiff resulting from the decedent’s injuries and death, and to return a verdict for the balance. Union Pacific Railway v. Harris, 158 U.S. 326, 333, 15 S.Ct. 843, 39 L.Ed. 1003. Not having done so in his charge prior to the verdict, it was proper in the situation here for the Judge to order the deduction after the verdict and to cause it to be reflected in an amended judgment. For not only did the verdict •state the full amount of plaintiff’s damages under F. E. L. A., but also it necessarily constituted an adjudication that the plaintiff held the $2500, concededly received for the release, for the defendant’s benefit. The omission of this feature of the verdict from the judgment we think Judge Smith rightly held to be an error which might “be corrected by the court at any time * * under Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. rule 60(a), 28 U.S. C.A. We also agree that the defendant was entitled to relief from the incomplete judgment on the ground of mistake and inadvertence under Rule 60(b). On the facts as above stated, the defendant’s “Motion De Satisfaction of Judgment” was filed within a reasonable time as required by Rule 60(b).
Affirmed.