Court Opinion

ID: 9626925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:28:02.00014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:37.676021
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, J., Concurring.
I concur.
In respect to the question of the power of the trial court to increase the amount of the verdict upon proceedings for new trial, I am in accord with the conclusions reached thereon, but base my approval upon the sole ground that defendants, by consenting to such increase, waived their right thereafter to *291raise the question. In the case of Secreto v. Corlander, 35 Cal. App. (2d) 361 [95 Pac. (2d) 476], (cited in the opinion), such a conditional order was made. Defendants failed to file a written consent and the new trial was granted. The latter, upon appeal, attacked the order upon the ground that the trial court was without power to make it. The court, in holding that such power existed, laid down a rule which, in my opinion, is directly opposed to the holding of the United States Supreme Court, in the late (1935) ease of Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474 [55 Sup. Ct. 296, 79 L. Ed. 603, 95 A. L. R 1150]. There, defendant accepted the terms of the conditional order for an increase in the amount of the verdict, but plaintiff did not. The latter then appealed, and attacked the order upon the ground that it infringed upon and violated his constitutional right to trial by jury. The court there said:
“Where the verdict returned by a jury is palpably and grossly inadequate or excessive, it should not be permitted to stand; but, in that event, both parties remain entitled, as they were entitled in the first instance, to have a jury properly determine the question of liability and the extent of the injury by an assessment of damages. Both are questions of fact. Where the verdict is excessive, the practice of substituting a remission of the excess for a new trial is not without plausible support in the view that what remains is included in the verdict along with the unlawful excess,—in that sense that it has been found by the jury,—and that the remittitur has the effect of merely lopping off an excrescence. But where the verdict is too small, an increase by the court is a bald addition of something which in no sense can be said tobe included in the verdict. When, therefore, the trial court here found that the damages awarded by the jury were so inadequate as to entitle plaintiff to a new trial, how can it be held, with any semblance of reason, that that court, with the consent of the defendant only, may, by assessing an additional amount of damages, bring the constitutional right of the plaintiff to a jury trial to an end in respect of a matter of fact which no jury has ever passed upon either explicitly or by implication 1 To so hold is obviously to compel the plaintiff to forego his constitutional right to the verdict of a jury and accept ‘an assessment partly made by a jury which has acted improperly, and partly by a tribunal which has no power to assess. ’ ”
*292From the wording of the above quotation, I believe that it is fairly susceptible of the construction that if the party who attacks the order has consented thereto, he is thereafter precluded from raising the question. It would seem that in this state we should adhere to the federal rule. It is true that the Seventh Amendment to the federal Constitution, guaranteeing trial by jury in civil cases, is not a limitation upon the states and does not affect state courts (11 Am. Jur., p. 1107, sec. 317), but our state Constitution contains a similar guarantee. (Art. I, sec. 7.)
Appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 24, 1941.