Court Opinion

ID: 9481119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:08:08.23963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:06.191490
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent because I believe that this case must be remanded for a new trial in light of an intervening change in the law.
At the time when this case was tried, District of Columbia law precluded an award of damages for emotional distress that was not caused by some physical injury. Subsequent to the trial in this case, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals discarded the legal requirement that, to be compensable, emotional harm must be caused by physical injury. During the jury deliberations in this case, the jury specifically asked the trial judge whether the plaintiff was barred from receiving damages for emotional distress if her alleged emotional injury was not caused by a physical injury. The judge answered in the affirmative, and the jury returned a verdict for the defendants almost immediately thereafter.
The exchange between the jury and the trial judge strongly suggests that the jury might have seriously considered giving the plaintiff damages for emotional distress if the applicable law had been different. Thus, I do not see how it can be said that the trial judge’s instruction did not have a prejudicial effect on the jury’s verdict. Since that instruction was based on a legal precept that is no longer good law in the District of Columbia, the case should be remanded for a new trial.
I.
As the majority correctly notes, the sole basis for the appeal in this case is a jury instruction concerning when a plaintiff may recover for emotional injuries. Imogene Williams, the plaintiff-appellant here, alleged minor physical injuries and substantial emotional injuries sustained in an elevator accident. Ms. Williams attributed her psychological trauma not to any physical injury but exclusively to the experience of being trapped in the malfunctioning elevator. The trial judge instructed the jury that, under District of Columbia tort law, a plaintiff may recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress only if the emotional injuries are directly caused by some physical injury suffered by the plaintiff. After deliberating for 90 minutes, the jury sent out its only question to the trial judge: “Do the psychological effects (damages-potential compensation) have to be a result of (related) physical injury?” Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 372-73. The trial judge answered in the affirmative. Id. 376. Shortly thereafter, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants on all counts.
After the judgment had been rendered and while the plaintiff’s appeal was pending before this court, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals handed down an en banc decision changing the governing tort law. Williams v. Baker, 572 A.2d 1062 (D.C.1990). In that case, the District of Columbia’s highest court “discarded] the requirement that, to be compensable, mental or emotional harm must be caused by physical injury.” Id. at 1073. The court’s opinion made two things vividly clear: first, the trial judge’s instructions in the instant case were entirely correct at the time they were given; and, second, those instructions would be incorrect if rendered anew today.
Ordinarily, an appellate court’s duty under such circumstances is clear. Where governing local law changes while a diversity case is pending on appeal, the appellate court must remand to the district court for a new trial pursuant to the new law. See Vandenbark v. Owens-Illinois Glass Co., 311 U.S. 538, 61 S.Ct. 347, 85 L.Ed. 327 (1941). “Intervening and conflicting decisions [of the state courts] will thus cause the reversal of judgments which were correct when entered.” Id. at 543, 61 S.Ct. at 350.
*1026Although the rule of Vandenbark requiring a new trial appears absolute, most courts applying it have undertaken a secondary inquiry to determine whether the state courts would themselves apply their new decisions retroactively to cases pending on appeal. This inquiry is justified on the grounds that a reflexive application of Vandenbark could “conflict with the general Erie principles [upon which Vanden-bark is founded] by giving retroactive application to a new state law rule even when the state’s highest court would not.” Moorhead v. Mitsubishi Aircraft Int’l, Inc., 828 F.2d 278, 289 n. 54 (5th Cir.1987) (citing Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938)).
In order to determine whether the District of Columbia Court of Appeals would apply Williams retroactively, we look to the local law of retroactivity.1 In this instance, the proper test is found in Mendes v. Johnson, 389 A.2d 781 (D.C.1978) (en banc). In Mendes, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals stated that “the extent of retroactive application, if any, of an overruling decision should be determined by the courts as a matter of judicial policy, requiring analysis ... on an individualized, case-by-case basis.” Id. at 788-89. This analysis should turn on four specific criteria:
(1) the extent of the reliance of the parties on the old rule (including the degree of justifiable reliance and the hardship which might result to the litigants as a result of retrospective application); (2) avoidance of altering vested contract or property rights; (3) the desire to reward plaintiffs who seek to initiate just changes in the law; and (4) the fear of burdening the administration of justice by disturbing decisions reached under the overruled precedent.
Id. at 789 (footnote omitted). These four factors must be considered against a backdrop of other District of Columbia case law which suggests that intervening judicial decisions should ordinarily be applied to cases pending on direct review “unless equitable considerations require a contrary result.” See Tenants of 2301 E St., N.W. v. District of Columbia Rental Hous. Comm’n, 580 A.2d 622, 628 (D.C.1990); cf. In re Creek, 243 A.2d 49, 51 (D.C.1968) (reviewing presumption favoring retroactive application of federal judicial decisions and noting that “[t]his is the rule which has been followed in our jurisdiction”); Cosby v. Shoemaker, 34 A.2d 27, 28-29 (D.C.1943) (“a change in the law between a nisi prius and an appellate decision requires the appellate court to apply the changed law”) (quoting Ziffrin, Inc. v. United States, 318 U.S. 73, 78, 63 S.Ct. 465, 87 L.Ed. 621 (1943)).2
*1027None of the Mendes factors favors limiting the rule announced in Williams v. Baker to prospective application. First, there is nothing to suggest that any party here relied in any meaningful way on the pre-ex-isting District of Columbia tort law in shaping its conduct. Cf. Zweibon v. Mitchell, 606 F.2d 1172, 1180 (D.C.Cir.1979) (acknowledging the general weakness of public reliance on rules of tort law), cert. denied, 453 U.S. 912, 101 S.Ct. 3147, 69 L.Ed.2d 997 (1981). Second, there is no vested contract or property right at stake. Cf. Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, 438 U.S. 59, 88 n. 32, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 2638 n. 32, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978) (“Our cases have clearly established that ‘[a] person has no property, no vested interest, in any rule of the common law.’ ”) (quoting Second Employers’ Liab. Cases, 223 U.S. 1, 50, 32 S.Ct. 169, 175, 56 L.Ed. 327 (1912)). The third factor — the desire to reward plaintiffs who promote innovations in the law — seems most applicable in cases in which a court must decide whether to apply a new rule to the litigants in the very case in which the new rule is announced. See Mendes, 389 A.2d at 791 (discussing factor in context of such litigants); cf. Lamb v. W-Energy, Inc., 884 F.2d 1349, 1350 n. 1 (10th Cir.1989) (recognizing “the additional policy consideration of affording the benefits of a change in law to the party whose efforts brought it about”). Finally, the fourth factor — the fear of eliciting a wave of attacks on settled judgments — appears to speak primarily to cases announcing changes in the criminal law, since settled civil cases cannot be collaterally attacked. See Zweibon, 606 F.2d at 1176-77. To the extent that it does apply to this case, the number of pending tort eases that might be affected by the change in law is not likely to be so great that the courts would be overburdened by retroactive application.
Because none of the foregoing factors compels prospective application, the underlying presumption favoring retroactive application suggests that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals would apply the rule of Williams v. Baker to this case on appeal.
II.
This brings me to the point of my divergence from the majority’s analysis. The majority concludes that even though the trial judge’s instructions concerning recovery of damages for psychological injuries were rendered erroneous by an intervening change of law, and even though such an error ordinarily necessitates a new trial, the error in this case was harmless. The damages instruction could not have affected the jury’s finding that the appellees were not negligent, the majority reasons, and, without negligence, the issue of recovery of damages was irrelevant to the verdict. By a strictly logical analysis, the majority is, of course, correct. On the facts of this case, however, I cannot share the majority’s confidence that the jury proceeded so logically in its deliberations.
From the very outset of this litigation, this case has been about Ms. Williams’ claim for damages for the emotional trauma she attributed to an elevator accident. Ms. Williams never claimed any significant physical injury; and it was virtually conceded from the start that her emotional distress was not the result of any physical injury. Thus, common sense would have told any juror that the only meaningful question to be decided was whether Ms. Williams could recover for her emotional distress. Indeed, from what we can glean from the record, this issue is the only one that gave the jury any pause. At the conclusion of its deliberations, the jury asked the trial judge a single, dispositive question: Can we give Ms. Williams the emotional damages she seeks given that her alleged emotional injury was not caused by a physical injury? The judge, correctly at the time, answered no. The jury then promptly held in favor of the defendants. This interaction between the jury and judge strongly suggests that the jury would have seriously considered giving Ms. Williams damages for emotional distress if the applicable law had been different.
If the jury had believed that the defendants were not in any sense “negligent,” there would have been no reason to ask the *1028question about the possibility of damages for emotional injury. Thus, it appears that the jury, upon confirming that it could not in any event award damages for emotional distress that was not a result of physical injury, simply decided that the defendants had “won” and held them not negligent — in effect, working backward from the question of recovery to the question of negligence. I recognize that this inference runs counter to the usual presumption that juries follow their instructions, see, e.g., Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 324 n. 9, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1976 n. 9, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985), but the circumstances of the jury’s deliberations in this case seem to me to refute that presumption. By asking the question it did, at the time when it did, the jury revealed that it considered the question of damages, logically or not, to be centrally relevant to its verdict. This revelation, it seems to me, defies the majority’s conclusion that the erroneous instruction was harmless. See Industrial Dev. Bd. v. Fuqua Indus., Inc., 523 F.2d 1226, 1240 (5th Cir.1975) (“Once the jury demonstrates that it is concerned with an issue [by requesting further instructions during deliberations], it cannot be said that a clearly erroneous instruction was nonprejudicial.”); cf. United States v. Gibbs, 904 F.2d 52, 59 (D.C.Cir.1990) (fact that jury requested further instructions during its deliberations on point later held to be error suggests that error influenced verdict).
We must remand for a new trial unless we are convinced that the erroneous instruction did not affect the jury’s verdict. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1247-48, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946); Jordan v. Medley, 711 F.2d 211, 218-19 (D.C.Cir.1983); see also Beckman v. Farmer, 579 A.2d 618, 648-49 (D.C.1990). Any significant doubt must be resolved in favor of a new trial. See Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. at 1248. Because I “cannot say, with fair assurance, ... that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error,” id., I cannot agree that the erroneous instruction was harmless.
III.
On the facts of this case, I believe Ms. Williams is entitled to a new trial in light of the intervening change of District of Columbia tort law. Therefore, I dissent.

. Appellee Elcon Enterprises urges that the proper standard for deciding whether a judicial decision will be applied retroactively is set out in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971). See Supplemental Brief for the Appellee Elcon Enterprises, Inc. at 3. But that test is appropriate only where a court decides the retroactive effect of a federal judicial decision; it does not govern the application of state law in a diversity case. See Eddings v. Volkswagenwerk, A.G., 835 F.2d 1369, 1373 n. 6 (11th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Griffin v. Ford Motor Co., 488 U.S. 822, 109 S.Ct. 68, 102 L.Ed.2d 44 (1988); Samuels v. Doctors Hosp., Inc., 588 F.2d 485, 488-89 & n. 8 (5th Cir.1979); see also American Trucking Ass’ns v. Smith, _ U.S. _, 110 S.Ct. 2323, 2330, 110 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) (plurality opinion) (“The determination whether a constitutional decision of this Court is retroactive ... is a matter of federal law. When questions of state law are at issue, state courts generally have the authority to determine the retroactivity of their own decisions.").
It must be acknowledged that an earlier panel decision of this court contributed to some confusion on this question. See Silverman v. Barry, 845 F.2d 1072, 1085-86 (D.C.Cir.) (applying Chevron Oil to determine that a decision by the District of Columbia Superior Court should be given only prospective application), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 956, 109 S.Ct. 394, 102 L.Ed.2d 383 (1988). That case, however, did not attempt to reconcile application of the Chevron Oil test with the Vandenbark decision or with Erie. Moreover, the result would have been the same in any event because the District of Columbia court had itself expressly confined its holding to prospective application. See id. at 1076.

. The federal courts, in deciding whether federal judicial decisions should be applied to cases pending on direct review, continue to adhere to a presumption favoring retroactive application. See, e.g., I.A.M. Nat'l Pension Fund v. Clinton Engines Corp., 825 F.2d 415, 423 (D.C.Cir.1987).