Court Opinion

ID: 9635479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:51:44.845835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:27.999322
License: Public Domain

Hornby, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion:
I am unable to agree with the majority that the denial of the motion for a new trial did not deprive the appellant of a substantial right. On the contrary I am convinced that denial of the motion under the singular circumstances in this case was not only prejudicial to the appellant but constituted in law an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court.
*294It seems clear that the jury—by its unprecedented itemization of the amount of its verdict—in effect declared that it had found a verdict either against the evidence, or against the instructions of the court, or both. Either reason constituted sufficient ground to support the granting of the motion for a new trial. See 2 Poe, Pleading and Practice (Tiffany ed.), §§ 335-337.
It is not disputed that counsel for appellee—though there was no evidence whatsoever as to the percentage of disability his client had suffered or as to her life expectancy other than that she was twenty-four years of age—in the course of his argument before the jury not only stated what he deemed was the minimum per centum (estimated at 10%) of her disability but also surmised that she would continue to live at least forty more years, and, by resorting to a simple arithmetical computation, categorically informed the jury that his client had had permanent injuries to her back aggregating $5,200.
While it is true that the trial court promptly sustained the objection of the appellant to the argument and instructed counsel for appellee to refrain from referring to evidence dehors the record, the jury, nevertheless, in arriving at its verdict—despite the implicit admonition that the remarks of counsel should not be treated as evidence—allowed the appellee the exact amount (“10% dis [ability] for 40 y[ea]rs”) that counsel had computed would compensate his client for her permanent injury.
The fact that the appellee failed to demand that the court declare a mistrial when the remarks were made or to request that the court further instruct the jury to disregard the improper reference to evidence not in the record are beside the point in view of the improper action of the jury. Nor are we concerned here with the fact that the amount of the verdict did not shock the conscience of the trial court.
As I see it, since the jury was not at liberty to take the remarks of counsel into account in arriving at the amount of its verdict, the refusal to grant the motion was an abuse of discretion in that it was improper for the lower court to ignore the undisputed fact that the jury of its own volition, over the signature of the foreman, informed the clerk of the court *295that it had considered as evidence facts that were not before it.
I would therefore reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.