Court Opinion

ID: 9769382
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:48:40.905121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:02.089908
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing, to Transfer, or to Modify.
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff’s motion to modify asks this court to limit the new trial to the issue of damages and, in the alternative, direct that the new trial order be set aside and plaintiff permitted to file the remittitur specified in the trial court’s conditional order.
Plaintiff concedes that this court has heretofore refused to remand a case for retrial on the question of damages only where the trial court has granted a new trial on all issues upon the ground of excessiveness where plaintiff had failed to comply with the trial court’s order of remittitur. Fullerton v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., Mo., 285 S.W.2d 572, 574 [5] ; Nix v. Gulf, Mobile & Ohio R. Co., 362 Mo. 187, 240 S.W.2d 709, 717 [17]. Plaintiff, however, contends that either the rulings in those cases should be reconsidered and no longer followed or that those cases should be deemed inapplicable to the instant case, because here, and not in the Nix and Fullerton cases, a specific ground of defendants’ motion for new trial, viz., that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, was overruled by the action of the trial court in sustaining only the assignment that the verdict was excessive. The instant new trial order meant that the trial court considered, upon weighing the evidence, that the verdict was for the right party but was excessive in amount and thus the trial court made clear the particular respect in which it deemed the award to be against the weight of the evidence. Murphy v. Kroger Grocery & Baking Co., 350 Mo. 1186, 171 S.W. 2d 610, 611 [2, 3], 612 [4]. But our reason for refusing to remand for retrial on the issue of damages only was stated, in Nix v. Gulf, Mobile & Ohio R. Co., supra, at 240 S.W.2d 717, as this: ’“Plaintiff had his trial and a verdict as to his damages. He refused to remit and appealed from an order in the making of which we have held there was no abuse of discretion. He is in no position now to ask us to remand for trial upon the damages issue alone — upon the very issue upon which plaintiff appealed and the ‘very issue we have' decided was properly ruled below. Such a remand would, in effect, render nugatory our decision that the 'trial court did not err in granting a new *248trial upon all issues upon plaintiff’s failure to remit.” In the instant case the trial court granted a new trial on all issues and we have held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in so doing. The reason stated in the Nix case for refusing to limit the retrial to the issue of damages, is equally valid as applied to the facts and circumstances of the instant case and we adhere to the view there expressed.
As noted, plaintiff alternatively asks that we finally dispose of this litigation by permitting him to now make the remittitur he refused to make in compliance with the trial court’s order. He points out that we afforded the plaintiffs second opportunities to enter remittiturs in the Nix case, supra, and in Steuernagel v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 361 Mo. 1066, 238 S.W.2d 426, 430 [6], And see Barnes v. Chism, Mo.App., 215 S.W.2d 775, 778 [3]. In the Nix case, while defendant’s motion for new trial was sustained on the sole ground that the verdict was excessive, the appellant railroad assigned and argued in its brief additional reasons for sustaining the action of the trial court in granting it a new trial. The original opinion in the Nix case ruled only that the trial court had not abused its discretion in ordering a remittitur and granting a new trial in the event plaintiff failed to remit. On motion to modify, this court determined adversely to defendant those additional issues which defendant had briefed and then remanded the case with directions to permit plaintiff to enter the re-mittitur which had been theretofore ordered by the trial court. In the Steuernagel case the sole question involved on the appeal and ruled in the original opinion was whether the order granting defendant a new trial upon plaintiff’s failure to have complied with a remittitur order was void for the asserted reason that plaintiff’s judgment had become final prior to the actual entry of an order by the court indicating that defendant’s motion for new trial had been sustained. On motion for rehearing and to modify plaintiff asked that final disposition be made of the case, contending that the only issue remaining was the amount of damages and both parties had briefed that issue. We there pointed out that we had authority to direct the judgment that should be entered, even though the trial court had ordered a hew trial. Section 512.160, subd. 3, V.A.M.S. And, after pointing out that that case had been in the courts for some time, that plaintiff had indicated that she did not desire a new trial, and that defendant had not contended in its brief that there was any ground other than excessiveness of verdict which would sustain the granting of a new trial, we passed on the issue of damages, held that the trial court had not erred in ordering a remittitur and a new trial, and directed that the order granting the new trial be set aside and plaintiff permitted to file the remittitur theretofore ordered by the trial court.
After having considered the questions involved, it is our view that the practice adopted in the Steuernagel case and followed in the Nix case (although under different circumstances as noted), was not intended to and should not constitute a general policy determining the disposition by appellate courts of cases under the facts and circumstances that exist in the instant case. On the contrary we have the opinion that, under these circumstances, viz.: when a trial court by its order of remittitur has given a plaintiff an opportunity to remit a certain amount from the verdict and thereby retain the remainder of his judgment, and when that plaintiff has refused to so do, and when thereafter the order granting defendant a new trial on all issues on the ground of excessiveness of verdict has become effective, and when plaintiff thereafter has appealed from that order granting defendant a new trial on all issues, and when on appeal plaintiff has contended that the trial court abused its discretion by requiring the remittitur ordered and in granting defendant a new trial, and when an appellate court has ruled that the trial court did not err in granting defendant a new trial on all issues upon plaintiff’s failure to have remitted as ordered, an appellate court, as a general *249rule, should not thereafter on plaintiff’s motion set aside the very order of the trial court it had just affirmed and direct that plaintiff have another opportunity to do that which he had theretofore refused to do.
Plaintiff’s motion for rehearing or to transfer to the court en banc or to modify the opinion by remanding for new trial on the issue of damages only or to permit plaintiff to remit as ordered by the trial court, is overruled.