Court Opinion

ID: 9495384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:01:41.913404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:59.554058
License: Public Domain

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge,
with whom CYR, Senior Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting.
I can understand the impulse to grant relief to the City here. Together, plaintiffs counsel and counsel for the City failed to recognize the well-established principle that local governmental entities are immune from punitive damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981). A very able trial judge also missed the mistake. Hence, the jury awarded $500,000 in punitive damages against the City.
No one disputes that, under City of Newport, the City could have avoided such an award. But that easy avoidance does not justify relieving the City of the consequences of its mistake. Whether we treat the City’s oversight as a failure to raise the affirmative defense of City of Newport immunity, or as a failure to object to a jury instruction under Rule 51, we must affirm the jury’s verdict unless we conclude that allowing the punitive damages award to stand would constitute a “miscarriage of justice.” Until today, we have reserved that label for “extraordinary” cases. Teamsters, Local No. 59 v. Superline Transp. Co., 953 F.2d 17, 21 (1st Cir.1992). Indeed, it appears that we have never before found a miscarriage of justice in a civil case involving faulty jury instructions. See Davis v. Rennie, 264 F.3d 86, 100-01 (1st Cir.2001). The circumstances of this case give us no reason to depart from that settled practice. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
I.
The majority and concurring opinions cite several factors to support their conclusion that allowing the punitive damages award to stand would result in a miscarriage of justice. In my view, those factors — either individually or in combination — fall far short of a miscarriage of justice.
A. Innocent Taxpayers
Both the majority and the concurring opinions emphasize that affirming the punitive damages award would be unjust because it would punish innocent taxpayers. See City of Newport, 453 U.S. at 267, 101 S.Ct. 2748. Those references to innocent taxpayers seem to have multiple meanings. The taxpayers are innocent in the sense *26that they did not engage in the conduct that the punitive damages are intended to punish and deter. Instead, the taxpayers — -who do not need to be deterred from future misconduct — must pay for the misdeeds of governmental actors. The taxpayers also are innocent in the sense that they did not make the mistake in litigation that resulted in the punitive damages award. Instead, that mistake was made by the City’s counsel.
Both versions of the innocence argument prove too much. The first version, focusing on the absence of deterrence, is simply a restatement of a policy reason invoked by the Supreme Court for the rule that municipalities are immune from punitive damages under § 1983. If that policy reason translates into a miscarriage of justice in every case where punitive damages are wrongly awarded against a municipality, there should be no pretense of a multi-factor analysis in such cases. Certainly, this version of innocence does not distinguish one such case from another.
On an even more basic level, the innocent taxpayer will always be the victim when some error at trial results in a large (or larger) damages award against a municipality or other governmental entity. Thus — unless we are prepared to recognize a local-government exception to our rules governing procedural default — the mere fact that innocent taxpayers will bear the brunt of the City’s error cannot suffice to establish a miscarriage of justice here.5
The second version of the innocence argument suffers from a similar defect in failing to- distinguish this case from any other case subject to plain error review. There are few tenets so well established in American jurisprudence as the proposition that a client is bound by the mistakes of its chosen counsel. See, e.g., Irwin v. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 92, 111 S.Ct. 453, 112 L.Ed.2d 435 (1990) (explaining that in “our system of representative litigation ... each party is deemed bound by the acts of his lawyer-agent”); Hoult v. Hoult, 57 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1995) (“We have repeatedly held that the acts and omissions of counsel are customarily visited upon the client in a civil case.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Plain error review offers an exception to that general rule for extraordinary cases. Obviously, the plain error standard — and particularly the requirement that relief will not be available absent a “miscarriage of justice” — cannot be satisfied simply because the complaining party (or those who ultimately bear its costs) will be harmed by its attorney’s mistake. To hold otherwise would deprive the miscarriage of justice requirement of any meaning, except in the very rare case where the error was caused by the party itself.
Put simply, the harm to innocent taxpayers here is no different from the harm that will occur whenever punitive damages are erroneously awarded against a municipality under § 1983, or when government counsel makes a costly blunder. While unfortunate, such harm does not constitute a “peculiar circumstance[ ]” that necessitates relief in order to “prevent a clear miscarriage of justice.” Nimrod v. Sylvester, 369 F.2d 870, 873 (1st Cir.1966).
*27B. Windfall to Chestnut
The majority opinion states that the court is justified in affording relief because this punitive damages award was a “windfall” for Chestnut, meaning, I gather, that those damages were unnecessary to compensate him fully. That assertion is grounded in speculation. We cannot know how the jury would have treated the compensatory damages question had it had been aware that punitive damages were unavailable.
One thing is very clear, however. This was not a runaway jury. To the contrary, Chestnut presented detailed evidence of the pay differential between his income as a crane operator and as a crane mechanic, including expert testimony from an economist who placed his past and future economic damages at $880,000. That expert prepared a report that was admitted into evidence regarding present value calculations of Chestnut’s economic damages under various assumptions.
Thus, considered in combination with the compensatory damages award, the punitive damages were well within the range of the compensable injury Chestnut sought to establish at trial. Only by ignoring reality can it be suggested, as the majority does, that the compensatory damages award to Chestnut probably was “uninfluenced by the large punitives.” Rather, absent the availability of punitive damages, the jury may well have awarded Chestnut substantially more in compensatory damages. We should be most reluctant to grant relief on the basis of an alleged windfall when we are unable to determine whether — and to what extent — it actually occurred.
C. Shared Responsibility for the Error
The majority emphasizes that Chestnut’s counsel played a role in causing the error — a circumstance that it describes as “somewhat unusual.” I see nothing unusual in such shared responsibility. In the process of assisting the judge with jury instructions, the parties routinely submit them proposed instructions. Not uncommonly, one party fails to see an error in the other party’s proposed instructions until after an unfavorable verdict. The objection is then raised, subject to plain error review. In that circumstance, both parties share responsibility for the error. However, until today, that fact has not entered the miscarriage of justice analysis.
The reason is fairly simple. In any case involving plain error review, the appellant will argue that the court below made an error that was so plain or obvious that it should be corrected notwithstanding the litigants’ failure to point it out. Therefore, as a matter of simple logic, it cannot possibly be enough that opposing counsel failed to call the court’s attention to a clear legal error or even said affirmatively that there was no error.6 That will be true in any case that makes it past the first prong of the plain error test; something more is needed in order to establish a miscarriage of justice.
In addition to being inconsistent with the well-established plain error standard, the majority’s reasoning is also unfair. In our adversary system, counsel for the City had the obligation to understand the law and advocate effectively for its client. It seems odd to equate Chestnut’s mistake with the negligence of the City. To do so unjustly penalizes Chestnut for failing to *28protect the interests of the City, his adversary in litigation.
D. Precedent
In a final attempt to justify the grant of relief here, the majority cites Nat'l Ass’n of Social Workers v. Harwood, 69 F.3d 622 (1st Cir.1995). There, as here, we gave the appellants the benefit of a governmental immunity notwithstanding their failure to raise that defense at trial. But that is where the parallel ends. The appellants in Harwood were state legislators, and the affirmative defense they tardily invoked was state legislative immunity. That kind of immunity is notably different from the immunity to punitive damages at issue here.
First, recognizing that legislative immunity is grounded in constitutional doctrine, we noted in Harwood that “[w]hen the Justices initially recognized state legislative immunity as a component of federal common law, they turned to the Speech or Debate Clause [U.S. Const, art. I., § 6, cl. 1] for guidance anent the contours of the doctrine.” Hanvood, 69 F.3d at 629. The fact that the defense raised “an issue of constitutional magnitude” was among the factors we took into consideration in deciding to consider the legislative’ immunity defense, notwithstanding the procedural default. Id. at 627. In contrast, the City of Newport municipal immunity to punitive damages is a purely common law defense, grounded in history and policy considerations. See City of Newport, 453 U.S. at 261, 101 S.Ct. 2748 (“In sum, we find that considerations of history and policy do not support exposing a municipality to punitive damages for the bad-faith actions of its officials.”).
Second, we explained in Harwood that our decision to relieve defendants from their procedural default was “fortified by our recognition that a primary purpose of the immunity is to prevent courts from intruding into precincts that are constitutionally reserved to the legislative branch.” 69 F.3d at 628 n. 6. Thus, we emphasized that the omitted issue of legislative immunity “implicates matters of great public moment, and touches upon policies as basic as federalism, comity, and respect for the independence of democratic institutions.” Id. at 628. Relief was necessary, we explained, to prevent the intrusion of the judicial branch into “the internal operations of a state legislature.” Id. at 629.
. No such separation-of-powers concerns are implicated here. Rather, we are faced only with the sort of “individualized harm that occurs whenever the failure seasonably to raise a claim or defense alters the outcome of a case.” Id. at 628 n. 5. That is not enough to warrant relief under the “miscarriage of justice” standard. Id.
II.
In sum, the majority’s invocation of Harwood — like its emphasis on innocent taxpayers, Chestnut’s so-called “windfall,” and his shared responsibility for the error — is insufficient to qualify this case as extraordinary, or its result as a miscarriage of justice. That, in itself, is enough to foreclose relief here. But there is more. Several other factors counsel strongly against granting relief in this case.
First, it bears emphasis that the procedural misstep by the City was particularly egregious. The rules set out in City of Newport, governing immunity from punitive damages, are hardly a trap for the unwary. To the contrary, the City had— and ignored — repeated opportunities to invoke that immunity. Chestnut made his intention to seek punitive damages explicit in his complaint and then in two subsequent amended complaints. The City never pled an affirmative defense in its answer to punitive damages under § 1983 *29and did not raise its defense to punitive damages at the pretrial conference.
During the charge conference conducted prior to closing arguments, the district court specifically asked counsel whether punitive damages were available against the City. Yet again the City faded to assert its immunity defense. Cf. Danco, Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 178 F.3d 8, 15 (1st Cir.1999) (deeming it material to “plain error” inquiry that legal issue was “specifically discussed” before trial court). Following the charge conference, the court recessed for a lunch break prior to entertaining closing arguments, thereby providing counsel with another opportunity to review the proposed jury charge and conduct any legal research suggested thereby.
During closing argument, Chestnut urged the jury to award punitive damages against the City. The City did not object. Then, the district court furnished counsel with the verdict form, which explicitly provided for punitive damages against the City. Still the City neither objected to the verdict form nor asserted its defense against any award of punitive damages, even though the proposed charge included an explicit instruction authorizing the jury to consider a punitive damages award against the City. Finally, although jury deliberations did not commence until the next day, which assured that the City had yet more time to examine the proposed charge and verdict form and undertake whatever legal research might be required, the City nevertheless failed to object to the proposed punitive-damages instruction.
A “miscarriage of justice” claim merits little credence on appeal where the desired relief was so obviously and readily available in the trial court. In my view, a “miscarriage of justice” entails a measure of fundamental unfairness. There is no such unfairness here, however, given that counsel for the City was accorded every conceivable opportunity to oppose the punitive damages claim and the related jury instruction.
Second, “[i]t counts heavily against finding plain error that the party on the other side would be unfairly prejudiced.” Id. Were we simply to vacate the punitive damages award, it is likely that Chestnut would be prejudiced. As explained above, the availability of punitive damages may well have affected the compensatory damages award made by the jury. Consequently, had punitive damages not been an option, the jury might very well have determined upon a larger compensatory damages award.
In order to forfend against the prejudice problem, the majority refuses to strike the punitive damages award, opting instead for a new trial on the issue of damages should Chestnut choose to pursue that option. Although its approach is surely more just, it is not without its own difficulties. The City sought alternative relief from the trial court: either (i) that the punitive damages award be stricken, leaving in place only the compensatory damages, or (ii) a new trial. On appeal, however, the City has abandoned its request for alternative relief, opting instead for its all-or-nothing strategy by requesting that we strike the punitive damages award on the ground that the availability of such damages affected neither the presentation of Chestnut’s case nor the amount of compensatory damages awarded by the jury.
Although we frequently permit appellees to preserve their trial court judgments by affirming on any basis apparent from the record (thereby furthering the interests of finality), see, e.g., McGurn v. Bell Microproducts, Inc., 284 F.3d 86, 91 (1st Cir.2002), we consistently have held appellants to the arguments raised and the relief sought, see, e.g., In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 183 F.3d 71, 73 n. 1 (1st Cir.1999) *30(declining to consider argument abandoned on appeal). Here, on the other hand, the majority, sua sponte, undoes a jury verdict by ordering a new trial. Moreover, in so doing, it once again reaches out to relieve the City of its fundamental mistake — its selection of an ineffective appellate strategy — by according relief not sought by the City at the outset of this appeal.
Finally, established precedents, in our own and other circuits, plainly prescribe that municipalities may forfeit their immunity defense to punitive damages claims under § 1988 due to their litigation conduct. For instance, in Sáldaña-Sánchez v. Lopez-Gerena, 256 F.3d 1, 11-12 (1st Cir.2001), we recognized that the defendants’ right to raise City of Newport may have been barred on procedural grounds. Similarly, in Black v. Stephens, 662 F.2d 181, 184 n. 1 (3rd Cir.1981), the Third Circuit affirmed a § 1988 punitive damages award against the City of Allentown, after having declined to allow the city to assert its City of Newport defense due to its failure to do so in the district court. See also Barnett v. Housing Auth. of Atlanta, 707 F.2d 1571, 1579-81 (11th Cir.1983) (declining to relieve appellant of failure to object to the submission of the § 1983 punitive damages issue to the jury, and affirming punitive damages award against Atlanta Housing Authority on account of that “procedural default”), overruled on other grounds, McKinney v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550, 1558-59 (11th Cir.1994).7 I can discern no sound reason for following a different course in the instant case.
III.
This is an awkward case, to be sure. The punitive damages issue should not have been presented to the jury, and the punitive damages award against the City was plainly contrary to law. Yet the question with which we are presented is neither whether the award amounts to plain error, nor whether the interests of the City were adversely affected. Instead, the issue is whether there was a miscarriage of justice such that the punitive damages award must be set aside. For the reasons stated above, I conclude that no such miscarriage of justice occurred. As I see no reason to relieve the City of the consequences of its litigation conduct, the punitive damages award should stand.

. Consistent with that view, federal courts in other contexts have refused to allow public entities to belatedly raise an affirmative defense to damages, notwithstanding the impact on innocent taxpayers. See, e.g., Bentley v. Cleveland County Bd. of County Comm'rs., 41 F.3d 600, 604-05 (10th Cir.1994) (concluding that county, having failed to raise affirmative defense of $100,000 statutory damages cap in discrimination suit until after $157,000 verdict was rendered, forfeited its right to that defense); Ingraham v. United States, 808 F.2d 1075, 1079 (5th Cir.1987) (barring government from belatedly raising statutory cap on medical malpractice damages).

. There is no suggestion in the record that Chestnut's counsel knowingly misrepresented the availability of punitive damages to the court. If there was such a knowing misrepresentation, this would be an entirely different case.

. But see Williams v. Butler, 746 F.2d 431, 443-44 (8th Cir.1984) (affirming district court decision to set aside § 1983 punitive damages award despite failure to object to punitive damages instruction at trial), on reh'g, 762 F.2d 73 (8th Cir.1985) (en banc), vacated on other grounds sub nom., City of Little Rock v. Williams, 475 U.S. 1105, 106 S.Ct. 1508, 89 L.Ed.2d 909 (1986), on remand, Williams v. Butler, 802 F.2d 296 (8th Cir.1986) (en banc), vacated on other grounds sub nom., City of Little Rock v. Williams, 485 U.S. 931, 108 S.Ct. 1102, 99 L.Ed.2d 264 (1988), on remand Williams v. Butler, 863 F.2d 1398 (8th Cir.1988) (en banc), cert. denied, City of Little Rock v. Williams, 492 U.S. 906, 109 S.Ct. 3215, 106 L.Ed.2d 565 (1989).