Court Opinion

ID: 9476134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:47:59.742792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:08.528831
License: Public Domain

*673ORDER DENYING REHEARING AND REHEARING EN BANC
Before Honorable WILLIAM J. HOLLOWAY, Jr., Chief Judge, and Honorable MONROE G. McKAY, Honorable JAMES K. LOGAN, Honorable STEPHANIE K. SEYMOUR, Honorable JOHN P. MOORE, Honorable STEPHEN H. ANDERSON, Honorable DEANELL R. TACHA and Honorable BOBBY R. BALDOCK, Circuit Judges, and Honorable WESLEY E. BROWN, District Judge.
There comes on for consideration the petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc filed by defendant-appellant Gannett Co., Inc.
Upon consideration whereof, the judges of the panel to whom the case was argued and submitted, Judge Holloway, Judge Seymour and Judge Brown, deny the petition for rehearing for the following reasons:
Gannett Co., Inc. first argues that this court applied the wrong standard of review, that Gannett was entitled to trial by jury pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 39(c), and that accordingly it was error for this court to review the findings of the district court under the clearly erroneous standard.
Initially the plaintiff-appellee Robert M. McKinney and the defendants-appellants The New Mexican, Inc., and Gannett Co., Inc., all sought damages at law entitling them to a jury trial as of right. II R. 654. McKinney, however, waived his right to a jury trial as well as his claim for legal damages, electing rescission. The New Mexican continued to press its right to a jury trial on its compulsory counterclaim. At the close of all the evidence the district court granted McKinney’s motion for a directed verdict on the New Mexican’s counterclaim. The case was then submitted to the jury which returned verdicts in favor of McKinney on his breach of contract claims and against McKinney on his fraud claim. In its Memorandum Opinion the district court treated the jury’s verdicts as having been rendered by an advisory jury and agreed with and embraced those verdicts in its Memorandum Opinion. Id. at 655, 661.
The district court concluded that Gannett Co., Inc., was not entitled to a trial by jury as of right. II R. 655. We agree that Gannett Co., Inc., was not entitled to a jury trial pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 38 or the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The district court did not abuse its discretion by not ordering a jury trial pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 39(c). This provision of the Rule confers discretion on the district court to order a trial with a jury whose verdict would have the same effect as if a trial by jury had been a matter of right “with the consent of both parties.” Here the district court did not order a trial by jury pursuant to Rule 39(c) rather, the court in its pre-trial order had ordered a trial by jury as of right. II R. 654. That right dissolved when McKinney elected to pursue rescission and waived damages and the New Mexican’s counterclaim was disposed of by a directed verdict in favor of McKinney. Moreover, there was no consent by all the parties for the court to order a jury trial by consent pursuant to Rule 39(c). See Hargrove v. American Cent. Ins. Co., 125 F.2d 225, 228 (10th Cir.1942). McKinney did not consent to trial by jury and even affirmatively waived his right to trial by jury. Thus the reasoning in Stockton v. Altman, 432 F.2d 946, 949-50 (5th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 994, 91 S.Ct. 1232, 28 L.Ed.2d 532 (1971), that consent to trial by jury can be inferred where one party demands a jury trial and the other parties do not object is not applicable here.
The cases cited by Gannett for the proposition that it was entitled to a jury trial pursuant to Rule 39(c) are not persuasive. Hargrove v. American Cent. Ins. Co., 125 F.2d 225 (10th Cir.1942), after reviewing the jury functions and requirements in the federal courts, held that the use of an advisory jury by the district court is limited to cases which are not triable to a jury as of right, and that if the parties waived their right to jury trial in a case thus triable, the court lacks authority to use an advisory jury. Id. at 228-29. Here the case was not triable to a jury as of right. Thus the use of the advisory jury was not proscribed by Hargrove. The remaining authorities cited by Gannett concern cases where a right to jury trial had been waived and the court was confronted with reinstating the constitutional right under Rule 39(b), see Paramount Pictures Corp. v. *674Thompson Theatres, 621 F.2d 1088, 1090-91 (10th Cir.1980) (no abuse of discretion to deny trial by jury where assumed right thereto was waived), or had reinstated the right on stipulation of the parties, but sua sponte reversed its reinstatement order. See, e.g., AMF Tuboscope, Inc. v. Cunningham, 352 F.2d 150, 152-53, 155 (10th Cir.1965).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in employing the use of an advisory jury in this case. And since it properly used such a jury, the court’s finding are reviewable by us under the clearly erroneous standard, as we have done. Sheila’s Shine Products, 486 F.2d at 122.
The claimed errors in the instructions given to the jury are harmless in light of the fact that the jury was acting in an advisory capacity in the trial of this action. See 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 2335, at 127 (1971). The remaining issues presented in the petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc have been addressed by the panel opinion and are without merit.
The petition for rehearing having been denied by the panel to whom the case was argued and submitted, and no member of the panel or judge in regular active service on the court having requested that the court be polled on rehearing en banc, Rule 35, Fed.R.App.P., the suggestion for rehearing en banc is denied.