Court Opinion

ID: 9578035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:40:52.542604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:22:25.112210
License: Public Domain

Rees, J.:
Concurring and dissenting.
The City’s motion for a new trial claimed the jurors were guilty of misconduct because they considered the newspaper article. A copy of the 27 column-inch article was appended to and incorporated as a part of the motion. It is almost wholly devoted to a report of closing arguments of counsel for the three named parties. Portions are purported literal quotations of statements of counsel; portions are paraphrased statements of counsel. With but a single exception, the article is commendably free of editorial characterization of the arguments or their presentation.
The closing arguments are not in the record on appeal; they are not a part of the transcript. The reportorial accuracy of the article cannot be evaluated. In all deference to my colleagues, we cannot say the article is an accurate summary of the remarks of counsel during closing argument. There is no way for us to know. Perhaps the article is reasonably balanced. However that may be, still the article is a report by a non-juror of portions of the arguments *688selected under the constraints of time and space governing the writer’s labor.
The trial judge denied the City permission to present evidence that one or more jurors read the article during their deliberations prior to arrival at their answers to the special questions. This evidence necessarily would be the testimony of jurors. The position adopted by the trial judge was that even if the article was read, the City suffered no prejudice. The majority holds it was error to deny presentation of the testimonial evidence but the error was harmless because consideration of the article by the jurors could have had no prejudicial effect. In my view, the new trial for jury misconduct requirement that substantial prejudice to the rights of the movant must be shown should not apply here.
The trial transcript discloses that on each of at least seven occasions during trial, prior to the taking of recesses and prior to its return of the special question answers, the “jury was admonished.” The admonitions are not reported of record. I assume that on each occasion the admonition was of the usual nature, was the “standard” language of admonition found in Kansas Benchbook, Kansas Judicial Council, p. 283 (1978), and included the instruction that “[y]ou shall not read or listen to any accounts or conversations of others concerning this case.” If the jury was so instructed and if one or more jurors read the article, the latter, standing alone, constituted disregard and direct violation of the instruction.
The special question answers included not only determination of the monetary value of the wrongful death damages sustained by the plaintiffs, the heirs of the decedent, Charles Johnson III, but also the percentage of fault attributed to each of four parties, that is, the decedent, Haupt, the City and the unnamed persons parked along the street. Judgment was neither sought nor granted against the unnamed persons. The monetary judgments were $1,500 against Haupt and $11,700 against the City.
Whose rights may have been substantially prejudiced by the jury misconduct?
Attribution to the decedent of 50% or more of the total fault would bar recovery by plaintiffs. Assuming attribution to the decedent of less than 50% of the total fault, attribution of fault to the decedent and the other three mentioned parties in percentages other than as recited in the special question answers would *689change the total amount to be recovered by plaintiffs — unless the only change is a different division between Haupt and the City of 44% of the total fault. It would change the individual amounts of recovery against Haupt and the City — unless the only change is a different division between the decedent and the unnamed persons of 56% of the total fault. It would not necessarily increase the recovery against the City. It could be either beneficial or detrimental to the plaintiffs, Haupt, or the City.
I believe that under the circumstances of this case, that is, the asserted conduct of the jurors, the trial judge’s instructions, and the varied possibilities of prejudicial consequence, the requirement that the movant show substantial prejudice to its rights should not be applied if the evidence presented on rehearing of the City’s motion for a new trial establishes that one or more of the jurors read the article.
Although there is language in opinions of our Supreme Court and in one or more opinions of this Court which on its face unqualifiedly requires that for a new trial to be granted substantial prejudice to the rights of the movant must be shown, it is appropriate to observe that in Verren v. City of Pittsburg, 227 Kan. 259, 261, 607 P.2d 36 (1980), it is said:
“On the other hand there are certain formalities of conduct which a jury is required to follow. Failure to obey these essential formalities of conduct can invalidate the verdict. Evidence may be offered in such cases to impeach a verdict when the evidence will show actions of the jurors by which they have intentionally disregarded the court’s instructions or violated one or more of the essential formalities of proper jury conduct.”
In this case, as it comes before us, there is no allegation or showing of evidence of “a conscious conspiracy by the members of the jury to disregard and circumvent the [trial judge’s] instructions.” (227 Kan. at 262.) But, I do not believe avoidance of the substantial prejudice requirement arises only where there is a “conscious conspiracy” by the jurors.
Simply put, I believe that in this case, if it is proved the newspaper article was read by one or more jurors, that fact, standing alone, establishes jury misconduct which requires a new trial.
It strikes me that application of the showing of substantial prejudice to the movant requirement is far less justified in a multi-party comparative negligence case than in traditional two-party cases.
*690I concur with the majority decision that this case be remanded for rehearing on the City’s motion for a new trial. I disagree with the majority only in regard to the matter of the newspaper article; they and I agree there was jury misconduct if the article was read; they say that as a matter of law proof of such misconduct would be insufficient to merit a new trial; I say a new trial would be required.