Court Opinion

ID: 9831956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:30:13.667097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:39.938043
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In the original opinion we did not expressly pass upon appellant’s complaints of the judgment against it in favor of appel-lees May, but reversed the judgment generally. The omission is adverted to in the motion for rehearing filed by those ap-pellees.
The judgment in favor of appellee Donnell was ordered reversed because of misconduct of the jury in relation to the amount of damages awarded to him. While that particular misconduct was specifically applicable to the appeal against appellee Donnell, the record discloses that the jury’s misconduct extended further and encompassed matters affecting the amount of damages awarded appellees May. At least three jurors testified on appellant’s motion for new trial that in their deliberations they, or some of them, raised the question of insurance probably carried by appellant, and the expenses incurred by ap-pellee May in attending the trial of the case, and that this element of expense was considered by the jury in determining the amount of damages. Several jurors testified upon this point, and while this Court probably would not have held that the evidence upon any one of the alleged incidents of misconduct, considered separately, would have warranted reversal, yet when all of the incidents of misconduct, including that *950occurring in connection with the issue of the amount of damages to appellee Donnell, are considered together, they show such flagrant and general misconduct as to require reversal. This is so as to ap-pellees May, particularly in view of the meager and unsatisfactory evidence in support of the amounts of damages awarded to them, which may not have been, within themselves, so excessive as to show they resulted from improper consideration.
A careful re-examination of the record does not lessen our firm conviction that the jury was guilty of misconduct which presumably affected their findings, at least as to the extent of appellant’s liability, and we adhere to the ruling that the judgment be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial on the whole case.
The motions of all appellees for rehearing will be overruled.