Court Opinion

ID: 9471201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:26:46.43067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:18.421778
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
One aspect of this appeal touches upon a significant issue in the administration of justice: whether a discretionary decision of a judge may legitimately be influenced by the amount of time and resources the judicial process has already devoted to a particular case. The problem arose in this litigation at the point where the District Judge was asked by the defendant to exercise his discretion to grant a motion for a new trial. This occurred seven years after the suit had been filed and after two trials had already been held. Judge Carter denied the motion, candidly stating that his exercise of discretion was significantly influenced by the time the case had been pending and its procedural history. Judge Lumbard’s opinion for the majority asserts that “the passage of time, by itself, is a consideration which should not have been given any weight in denying the new trial mo*696tion. ... ” At 692. Nevertheless, the majority affirms Judge Carter’s denial of the motion, concluding that his mention of the time factor was inconsequential to his ruling. With respect, I do not believe the majority’s attempt to disregard the significance of Judge Carter’s statement will withstand analysis, and I therefore confront the issue whether his discretion was properly exercised. In my view, the passage of time and the procedural history of the case were legitimate factors for the District Judge to consider. For that reason I concur in the Court’s judgment and in all portions of the majority opinion concerning issues other than the denial of the new trial motion.
I.
There are two strands to the majority’s analysis of Judge Carter’s ruling on the motion for a new trial. First, the majority views his explanation for his ruling as if he had simply said that, if he had been the trier, he would have differed with the jury’s verdict. To this view of the record the majority applies the traditional rule that a trial judge’s mere disagreement with a jury’s verdict is not a sufficient basis for granting a new trial. The conclusion reached is that whatever Judge Carter said about the passage of time is irrelevant since he did not in any event consider the verdict contrary to the weight of the evidence, the standard that he would have had to find was met before he could have granted the motion. Second, the majority states that on its view of the evidence Judge Carter was not entitled to grant a new trial. This conclusion also renders his reference to the time factor irrelevant. I find both aspects of the analysis flawed, the first because it misinterprets what Judge Carter said and the second because it involves a decision beyond our authority.
Judge Carter first considered defendant’s motion for judgment n.o.v. In denying that motion, he noted his disagreement with the verdict, but acknowledged that the evidence sufficed to support the verdict, thereby requiring him to deny the motion for judgment n.o.v. Turning next to the new trial motion, Judge Carter noted that this motion “brings into play other considerations, chief of which is the court’s duty to prevent a miscarriage of justice.” At that point he cited Bevevino v. Saydjari, 574 F.2d 676, 684 (2d Cir.1978). That decision, at the page cited by Judge Carter, concerns the standard for setting aside a verdict as against the weight of the evidence. Bevev-ino noted that a district judge would not be warranted in granting a new trial simply because he disagreed with a jury’s verdict, but only if it is “ ‘quite clear that the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result.’ ” Id. (quoting 6A Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 59.08[5] at 59-160 — 59-161 (1973)). Having thus identified the correct standard, Judge Carter then wrote:
Under other circumstances I would be inclined to grant defendant’s motion, however, this case is seven years old and the recent trial is its third [actually, the second, after an initial dismissal of the complaint]. It has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court once, and the Court of Appeals twice and may be headed there a third time. Although I have serious doubts about the verdict, the fair administration of justice requires that this case remain unsettled no longer. Accordingly, the motion is denied.
It seems clear to me that Judge Carter recognized the correct standard and stated that he would have found the standard met and granted a new trial had it not been for the passage of time and the history of litigation. By referring to a court’s duty to prevent a “miscarriage of justice” and expressing his “serious doubts” about the verdict, he did more than merely express disagreement with the verdict, something he had already done in disposing of the motion for judgment n.o.v. In short, the District Judge exercised his discretion significantly, if not decisively, on the basis of the passage of time and the procedural history of the case.
The second aspect of the majority’s analysis suggests that even if Judge Carter had expressed an inclination to set aside the *697verdict as against the weight of the evidence, he would have erred in doing so. It is not entirely clear whether the majority means that it does not consider the verdict contrary to the weight of the evidence or that it would consider it an abuse of discretion if Judge Carter had set aside the verdict as contrary to the weight of the evidence and that such a ruling would have been subject to reversal. Clearly an appellate court has no authority to make its own assessment of whether a verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence. See 6A Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 59.08[5] (1983). And, though an order granting a new trial because the verdict is against the weight of the evidence is generally reviewable for abuse of discretion upon appeal from a final judgment, e.g., Massey v. Gulf Oil Corp., 508 F.2d 92 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 838, 96 S.Ct. 67, 46 L.Ed.2d 57 (1975); Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. v. Aalco Wrecking Co., 466 F.2d 179, 185-87 (8th Cir.1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 930, 93 S.Ct. 1371, 35 L.Ed.2d 592 (1973), this Circuit has disclaimed the authority to review such a ruling, Portman v. American Home Products Corp., 201 F.2d 847, 848 (2d Cir.1953); see Compton v. Luckenbach Overseas Corp., 425 F.2d 1130, 1132 & n. 2 (2d Cir.) (affirming order denying new trial because verdict not against weight of the evidence), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 916, 91 S.Ct. 175, 27 L.Ed.2d 155 (1970).
I therefore conclude that Judge Carter explicitly relied on the passage of time and the procedural history of the case in denying defendant’s motion for a new trial and that we cannot ignore the significance of his doing so by ruling that he would have erred had he granted the motion.1 However, we have not disclaimed the authority to review an order granting or denying a motion for a new trial if the trial judge applied an incorrect standard, see Compton v. Luckenbach Overseas Corp., supra, 425 F.2d at 1133. If it really was impermissible for Judge Carter to consider the passage of time and the procedural history of the case in denying defendant’s motion for a new trial, we should remand the matter to him to reconsider the motion in the exercise of his discretion without regard to these factors. Whether these were impermissible factors merits further consideration.
II.
No doubt it is unsettling to many even to consider whether a judge is entitled to take into account the protracted history of a case in making a discretionary ruling. Our aspirations toward a perfectable system of justice are so deeply ingrained that we tend to recoil at the thought that a ruling a litigant would have received at an earlier stage of litigation may legitimately be denied to him at a later stage, even though his request for relief is timely according to the rules applicable to his motion. It is an instinctive reaction among judges and lawyers that justice must never be sacrificed to expediency, a view that normally favors additional procedures without regard to resulting delays. Underlying this reaction is a perception of justice that focuses solely on the outcome of a particular case and ignores the frequently competing concern for justice in the litigation system as a whole-justice to all those who must suffer further delay and frequently incur further costs, if, for example, a seven-year-old case tried twice receives an eighth year of proceedings and a third trial. See United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 93 F.Supp. 190, 191 (D.Mass.1950) (Wyzanski, J.) (“The Court has obligations to other parties who have cases to be heard.”). The issue posed by Judge Carter’s ruling is part of the fundamental challenge, too rarely confronted directly, of striking an appropriate balance between the benefits of a meticulous system of litigation, striving to achieve perfection of results, and the costs in time, money, and other resources that such a system entails.
*698It would be too extravagant to maintain that the time and resources already devoted to a single case are not relevant to any aspect of the future course of that litigation. Any trial judge considering the time to allow for various phases of litigation will inevitably weigh the time that has already elapsed. This occurs routinely in setting deadlines for the end of discovery, the start of a trial, the examination of a witness, and, on occasion, the aggregate length of each side’s presentation of evidence at trial. These instances pose the issue in relatively easy terms, for the judge is only limiting the amount of time for a future task in light of the time already spent in performing that task. They are qualitatively different from Judge Carter’s ruling, which permits the passage of time and the procedural history of a case to influence the resolution of a contested legal claim. Yet the common principle at work must not be overlooked. The party denied requested time to depose an additional witness or present trial testimony may have lost the evidentiary basis for obtaining a legal ruling it might otherwise have secured. The passage of time has contributed to the outcome.
I believe that trial and appellate judges have considered the time and resources already devoted to a case in a variety of situations where the outcome of a ruling is directly implicated. What is rare is for a judge to articulate reliance on these factors. Indeed, some may subconsciously weigh these factors without articulation to themselves. Perhaps that is what is occurring on this appeal when the majority states that Judge Carter may not consider the passage of time in denying a new trial and then affirms his ruling in this case. It is just possible that the majority shares Judge Carter’s distaste for a third trial of this case and is willing to view what it regards as an improper ground for the exercise of a trial judge’s discretion as less consequential at this late stage of the litigation than it might have been viewed at an earlier stage.
On occasion courts have articulated the significance of the passage of time and the history of a case as a factor influencing the procedural course of litigation. The Supreme Court has undertaken consideration of issues that it would have resubmitted to a court of appeals, but for the need to terminate litigation already many years old. Consolo v. Federal Maritime Commission, 383 U.S. 607, 621, 86 S.Ct. 1018, 1027, 16 L.Ed.2d 131 (1966); O’Leary v. Brown-Pacific-Maxon, Inc., 340 U.S. 504, 508, 71 S.Ct. 470, 472, 95 L.Ed. 483 (1951). This Court has redetermined damages, rather than remand to the trial court, in order to conclude protracted litigation. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc. v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 516 F.2d 172, 186-87 (2d Cir.1975), rev'd on other grounds, 430 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 926, 51 L.Ed.2d 124 (1977); Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. U.S. Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc., 446 F.2d 295, 299 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 870, 92 S.Ct. 105, 30 L.Ed.2d 114 (1971).2 This Court’s willingness to determine the damages in Chris-Craft is especially instructive. That case did not involve a simple recalculation in light of a disallowed item, but instead required an exercise of the fact-finding responsibility normally entrusted to the district court. In determining a loss of value of shares, the Court decided what the shares were worth before the alleged illegality and their worth thereafter, and in making the latter finding, the Court selected between the conflicting views of expert witnesses. 516 F.2d at 189-90. The Court’s opinion explicitly noted that this *699displacement of the normal role of a district court, with a resulting damage award not necessarily the same as a district court would have awarded on remand,3 was influenced by the fact that the case was in its sixth year and on its third appeal to this Court. Id. at 186.
Even if the passage of time and the procedural history of a case may appropriately influence some rulings, the question remains whether these are permissible factors to consider in deciding whether to grant a new trial in a civil case on the ground that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. A party seeking a new trial on this ground has little to complain of if its motion is denied. A jury has already resolved the factual disputes against it, and a judge, in rejecting a motion for judgment n.o.v.,4 has determined that the evidence was legally sufficient to permit the jury to return the verdict. Whether a trial judge will nevertheless award a new trial not because he simply disagrees with the verdict but because he regards it as against the weight of the evidence as he assesses it is an entirely discretionary matter. In this Circuit the authority to review the grant or denial of such a motion has been explicitly disclaimed. Portman v. American Home Products Corp., supra. Even when such a motion is granted, it is generally thought that it will not be granted a second time if the second jury reaches the same verdict as the first jury. “Courts rarely grant a new trial after two verdicts upon the facts in favor of the same party, except for error or law.... ” Louisville & Nashville R.R. v. Woodson, 134 U.S. 614, 623, 10 S.Ct. 628, 631, 33 L.Ed. 1032 (1890). See 6A Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 59.08[5] (1983). Though the adoption of that precept in the federal courts has no doubt been influenced by Seventh Amendment considerations, its origin at common law, see Graham, New Trials 541 (1834), reflects the need to bring litigation to a conclusion, even if the result remains judicially viewed as unjust. Such an approach, as Holmes observed in the context of limiting trial length, is simply “a concession to the shortness of life.” Reeve v. Dennett, 145 Mass. 23, 28, 11 N.E. 938, 944 (1887).
Not only is a trial judge’s discretion at its fullest when deciding whether a verdict is against the weight of the evidence, but the passage of time has a special pertinence to the exercise of that discretion. Since the judge is not rendering judgment for the moving party but simply giving it the opportunity to have another jury weigh the evidence, a judge granting the motion presumably believes that there is some greater likelihood that a second jury will return a verdict in accord with his view of the weight of the evidence. Time has a bearing on that likelihood. With the passage of time, recollections fade, and ascertainment of facts becomes more difficult. Thus, in this case, Judge Carter was entitled to consider not only whether the verdict was against the weight of the evidence but also whether, in view of the age of the litigation, there was sufficient likelihood that another jury would return a “better” verdict.
Even though it is not the fault of the defendant that this case has already been tried twice and had been pending seven years when Judge Carter ruled, I think he was entirely warranted in taking into *700account the age of the case and its procedural history. His denial of the Rule 59 motion was a commendable invocation of the command of Rule 1 that the civil rules be construed “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.” Fed.B.Civ.P. 1. I applaud Judge Carter for candidly stating what influenced his ruling on the new trial motion, and I join the majority in affirming his denial of that motion.

. If, contrary to Portman v. American Home Products Corp., supra, we could review for abuse of discretion an order setting aside a verdict as against the weight of the evidence, I doubt whether we would have found an abuse of discretion on this record if Judge Carter had granted a new trial.

. To the same effect are Sauers v. Alaska Barge & Transport, Inc., 600 F.2d 238, 247-48 (9th Cir.1979) (because suit was pending eight years appellate court selects appropriate rate of pre-judgment interest to compensate for effect of inflation on damages, instead of remanding to district court), and Felder v. United States, 543 F.2d 657, 671 (9th Cir.1976) (because suit was pending seven years appellate court redetermines damage award). See also Pegues v. Mississippi State Employment Service, 699 F.2d 760, 766 n. 7 (5th Cir.1983) (because of age of lawsuit and death of trial judge appellate court resolves issues on merits not reached by district court); Weaver v. Marine Bank, 683 F.2d 744, 748 (3d Cir.1983) (because of age of lawsuit appellate court decides whether to use state procedure for transferring pendent claims to state court, instead of remanding for decision by district court).

. The Court adopted an approach that virtually ensured that its damage award would not be the same as the figure the District Judge would have awarded. In revising upwards to more than $25 million a $1.6 million damage calculation of the District Court that was too low, the Court stated that the upper limit of its redeter-mination would be the minimum amount that the District Court could have awarded without committing reversible error, Chris-Craft Industries, Inc. v. Piper Aircran Corp., supra, 516 F.2d at 187. Had the matter been remanded, the District Court, advised of this Court’s view of the legal principles, would have been entitled to award damages between the minimum and maximum amounts that could have been awarded without committing reversible error.

. There is no suggestion that Judge Carter permitted the passage of time or the procedural history of the case to influence his ruling on defendant’s motion for judgment n.o.v., a non-discretionary ruling on an issue of law and one that entailed no risk of further trial court proceedings whichever way he ruled.