Court Opinion

ID: 9591755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:07:21.389435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:11.827791
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). I wholeheartedly agree with the majority opinion with respect to the issues raised in W. R. Grace & Company's appeal. I also agree with the majority opinion with respect to Northridge Company's cross-appeal on the issues of photocopying costs, double costs, and pre-verdict interest.
I firmly disagree, however, with the majority's reversal of the trial court's reduction of the jury award by Northridge's contributory negligence. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent on that issue.
The majority concludes "the trial court erred in granting Grace's request to reduce the judgment" *291because Grace did not timely move under § 805.16(1), Stats., to reduce the jury's damage award. Majority op. at 284. The majority has inappropriately shifted the burden on challenging the jury verdict to Grace.
The special verdict questions were approved by both parties before they were submitted to the jury. Thus, any challenge to those verdict questions was waived. See, e.g., John A. Decker & John R. Decker, Special Verdict Formulation in Wisconsin, 60 MARQ. L. Rev. 201, 269-71 (1977) (discussing role of waiver in special verdict conference). As the majority points out, the jury gave the following answers to the approved verdict questions:
Question 3 asked, "Was W.R. Grace & Co. negligent?" The jury answered, "Yes." Question 4 then asked, "If you answered 'yes' to question 3, then answer this question: Was such negligence a cause of the plaintiffs' injuries?" The jury answered, "Yes." Question 5 then asked, "If you answered 'yes' to Question 2 and/or 4, then answer this question: Were the plaintiffs negligent?" The jury answered, "Yes." The jury then answered Question 6 and Question 7, finding that Northridge's negligence was 20% causal.
Then, after five questions on the misrepresentation issues and one question on the contamination issue, Question 14 asked, "On or before April 4,1988, was the Monokote-3 in the Northridge and Southridge malls a nuisance or reasonably certain to become a nuisance?" The jury answered, "Yes." The next question asked the jury to determine the sum of money to compensate Northridge, and the final two questions related to the issues of outrageous conduct and punitive damages.
Majority op. at 282-83 (footnote omitted).
*292The jury was only given one question on the amount of compensatory damages suffered by Northridge; it was not asked to separate the damages based on the negligence and the nuisance verdict questions. Thus, the verdict as returned by the jury on December 21, 1994, contemplated only one damage award for all of Northridge's causes of action. Further, as part of its verdict, the jury answered that Northridge was twenty percent causally negligent.
A jury verdict must stand and is binding on a reviewing court if there is credible evidence to support it. See Alaimo v. Schwanz, 56 Wis. 2d 198, 203 & n.8, 201 N.W.2d 604, 607 & n.8 (1972). Thus, unless attacked by one of the parties, a valid verdict must stand as rendered by the jury.
A motion "attacking" the verdict "must be filed and served within twenty days after the verdict is rendered." Section 805.16(1), Stats. It is undisputed that the controversy surrounding the nuisance claim — that is, whether it was an intentional or negligent nuisance — first arose on March 2, 1995, at the hearing on Northridge's proposed order for judgment. Thus it was raised outside the twenty-day limit in § 805.16(1). Northridge argues and the majority agrees that if Grace had wanted the nuisance claim to be considered premised on negligence rather than as an intentional tort, it should have challenged or asked for clarification of the jury verdict on this point within the twenty-day time limit. I disagree with this argument and conclusion because the burden was not on Grace to challenge the verdict, but on Northridge to challenge the reduction by its contributory negligence.
I reach this conclusion by looking at what the verdict said at the time the jury rendered it. Indeed, we *293should read the jury verdict "as a whole," regardless of the order that the special verdict questions were given and answered. See Johnson v. Heintz, 73 Wis. 2d 286, 306, 243 N.W.2d 815, 828 (1976). As stated above, the jury contemplated only one damage award for all of Northridge's causes of action, including the negligence questions and the nuisance question. The jury was not asked to determine a separate damage award for any intentional torts. Further, the jury determined Northridge was twenty percent causally negligent. Thus, for us to read the whole verdict as valid, we must conclude that the nuisance claim was premised on negligence — not as an intentional tort. There was credible evidence presented at trial to support this reading of the verdict. Further, nothing in the instructions presented to the jury on the nuisance claim conflicts with this assessment. Finally, a jury's apportionment of negligence — including contributory negligence — applies to all of the negligence-based causes of action in a valid jury verdict. Hence, here the jury concluded that Northridge was twenty percent causally negligent with respect to all the causes of action and thus the four corners of the jury verdict contemplated a reduction of the total verdict by that percentage.
Any challenge to this reduction of contributory negligence need not come from Grace — who was the beneficiary of this jury finding — but from Northridge. It is undisputed that Northridge never challenged the reduction of the jury verdict within the twenty days proscribed by § 805.16(1), STATS. Grace was therefore correct when it argued on March 2, 1995, that the reduction of the jury verdict was nothing more than a request for "the trial court to fulfill its duty to enter judgment on the verdicts." Majority op. at 283.
*294The majority wrongfully shifted the burden to challenge the verdict in this case to Grace. The trial court properly reduced the jury verdict by twenty percent. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion on this issue.