Court Opinion

ID: 9725081
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:28:17.695859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:11:01.570374
License: Public Domain

McDANIEL, J.
I concur in part and dissent in part.
The notice of intent to move for a new trial specified four grounds: (1) inadequacy of damages; (2) insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict; (3) that the verdict was against the law; and (4) an error in law occurring at the trial and excepted to by the plaintiff.
*70In the order granting the motion for a new trial, the trial judge, as his grounds and reasons therefor, stated, “[t]he admission of the testimony of the defendant’s expert, Mr. Kruiper [¿ic], over the objection of lack of foundation was in error.” The order went on to discuss certain aspects of that lack of foundation and then recited: “The testimony of the expert of his opinion of plaintiff’s speed in excess of the legal speed limit prior to the collision was material to the issue of plaintiff’s contributory negligence, which issue was decided adversely to plaintiff. No other substantial evidence of contributory negligence was introduced.”
The order is completely silent about any other of the grounds specified in the notice of intent. However, the order likewise fails to limit the scope of the new trial to apportionment of damages, a result which seems clearly to be implied by the statement of reasons in light of the language of Code of Civil Procedure section 657. Nevertheless, the majority propose to affirm the order and further to allow the new trial to proceed on all issues, including damages, despite the plain implication arising from the content of the order.
If the trial judge had specifically stated that he was granting the motion because of the inadequacy of damages, and said no more, we would have reversed the order out of hand. (Scala v. Jerry Witt & Sons, Inc., 3 Cal.3d 359, 363-364 [90 Cal.Rptr. 592, 475 P.2d 864]; Mercer v. Perez, 68 Cal.2d 104, 116 [65 Cal.Rptr. 315, 436 P.2d 315]; Meiner v. Ford Motor Co., 11 Cal.App.3d 127, 144-145 [94 Cal.Rptr. 702], see dissent of Tamura, J.) This reversal would have occurred because the hypothetical order would have failed to state those reasons, in terms of actual evidence, why the trial judge had determined that the damages were inadequate.
In the actual order before us, the judge in his statement of reasons discussed only the error in law in admitting the expert testimony, evidence which went only to the issue of plaintiff’s fault. If that order had gone on to state explicitly that a new trial was granted also on the ground of inadequacy of damages but had failed to specify the reasons therefor, we would have been forced to direct modification of the order to delete that ground. Such modification would have been mandated by the plain language of section 657. In pertinent part that section provides, “. . . (a) the order [granting a new trial] shall not be affirmed upon the ground of . . . inadequate damages, unless such ground is stated in the order granting the motion and (b) on appeal from an order granting a new trial upon the ground of . . . inadequate damages, it shall be *71conclusively presumed that said order as to such ground was made only for the reasons specified in said order . ...” As a consequence of this language, we must presume, when reviewing an order granting a motion for a new trial where inadequacy of the damages was a ground for the motion, that only the reasons “specified in said order” constitute the reasons for making the order. Where a trial court has failed to state any reasons as the basis for its order granting a new trial on the ground of the inadequacy of damages, an appellate court, on review of that order, can disregard such grounds. (Gaskill v. Pacific Hosp. of Long Beach, 272 Cal.App.2d 128, 130 [77 Cal.Rptr. 373].)
It therefore follows, if no reasons are specified in support of this ground, that we must presume that there were no such reasons, and hence that such ground was not considered by the trial judge in granting the motion.
The logic of this is self-evident. If as a trial judge I can only utilize the ground of inadequacy of damages if I state reasons for it, then if I state no reasons I must intend not to utilize that ground. If this logic is sound, the majority opinion, in declining to limit the scope of the new trial to apportionment of fault is allowing by indirection what it could not allow directly. In doing so, the majority ignores the effort of the trial judge to comply with section 657.
The case on this point is precisely controlled by O’Kelly v. Willig Freight Lines, 66 Cal.App.3d 578 [136 Cal.Rptr. 171]. In O’Kelly, the juiy made special findings on plaintiff’s total damages and the percentage of those damages attributable to plaintiff’s own negligence.1 An order was issued granting a new trial, but without specifying what particular issue or issues were to be retried. The court did, however, state as the basis for the order the fact that the evidence failed to support the apportionment of liability between the parties which the jury had found. On appeal, the defendants contended that the new trial should be limited to the issue of apportionment of damages and that the total damage issue should not be retried. The court stated: “We agree. [If].. . [T]he order is silent as to all matters except the proportion of apportionment. It is clear from the order granting the new trial motion, and from the specification of reasons, that the trial court did not intend a total retrial, nor a retrial concerning the total amount of damage. ... [If] ... It is true that, in order to make a proper allocation of damage, the jury on the new trial will *72have to hear, and weigh, anew, all of the evidence dealing with the conduct of the parties, but the jury may, properly, be told, when the case is submitted to them that. . . they must proceed on the assumption that the total damage was $16,147.43 and . . . their sole function is to apportion that total damage between the parties.” (O’Kelly v. Willig Freight Lines, supra, 66 Cal.App.3d 578, 583.)
The minute order granting a new trial should be modified so as to limit the new trial to the apportionment of the $6,000 damages already found. As thus modified, I would affirm the order.
Appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied May 18, 1978.

In both O’Kelly and here, the plaintiffs sought a motion for new trial on the issue of total damages and apportionment of damages.