Court Opinion

ID: 9709597
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:51:59.070489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:50.415737
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE SIMON, specially concurring: I concur in the first part of Mr. Justice Rizzi’s opinion: I agree that viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant, it so overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff on the issue of contributory negligence that no finding of contributory negligence could ever stand. The special interrogatory on that issue need never have been propounded. And I concur in the conclusion that in these circumstances it is proper to enter judgment on the general verdict. I see no need, however, to decide whether the special interrogatory statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 110, par. 65) is constitutional. Where a jury’s general verdict is inconsistent with its answer to a special interrogatory, the special answer controls, and the court enters judgment accordingly. The special answer is the jury’s finding of fact; the general verdict is a mere erroneous conclusion or application of law; the court corrects the jury’s legal error and enters judgment as the law demands on the facts as the jury authoritatively found them. If, however, the answer to the special interrogatory is against the manifest weight of the evidence, it is set aside, and the case is retried. Here, however, not only is the answer against the manifest weight, but the evidence to the contrary is so overwhelming that no such answer could ever stand. Of course, if the evidence on all issues necessary to a judgment for one party were so overwhelmingly in that party’s favor, he would be entitled to judgment notwithstanding anything the jury might have said. But that is not the case here. The evidence on issues other than contributory negligence (such as the defendant’s negligence, proximate cause, and damages) would support a verdict for either side. The plaintiff can have judgment only on the strength of the general verdict in his favor. The question is, can the plaintiff rely on that verdict, or has the inconsistent special answer so impeached it as to nullify it and necessitate a new trial? The argument for a new trial is that the inconsistency shows the jury was confused and untrustworthy. The weight of authority, at least in this district, is that in such a case it is proper to enter judgment on the general verdict — or to reach the same result by regarding that verdict as establishing all facts necessary to sustain it except those determined by the special answer, and then to enter judgment as the facts demand. This was suggested in Kirby v. Swedberg (1969), 117 Ill. App. 2d 217, 253 N.E.2d 699, and is the holding of Zygadlo v. McCarthy (1974), 17 Ill. App. 3d 454, 308 N.E.2d 167, and Leonard v. Pacific Intermountain Express Co. (1976), 37 Ill. App. 3d 995, 347 N.E.2d 359. In those cases, the court stated that while if the special answer were merely against the manifest weight of the evidence, a new trial would be required, yet if no such answer could ever stand, judgment could be entered on the general verdict. These cases were expressly disapproved in Starbuck v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R.R. Co. (1977), 47 Ill. App. 3d 460, 362 N. E. 2d 401. Starbuck, however, blurs the distinction between manifest weight and overwhelming weight. Moreover, Starbuck appears to say that its result is compelled by Borries v. Z. Frank, Inc. (1967), 37 Ill. 2d 263, 226 N.E.2d 16. But Borries concerned a special answer that was supported by the evidence. The trial judge there ordered a new trial on the theory that the jury must have been confused; the supreme court reversed, reiterating the rule that judgment should be entered on the special answer. I do not see how Borries can be regarded as instructing us to play safe by ordering new trials whenever the jury seems suspect. Recent decisions in two other closely related situations also discredit the confusion theory, the assumption that a jury which erred in answering a special interrogatory probably erred in the general verdict as well. In Brock v. Winton (1980), 82 Ill. App. 3d 1010, 403 N.E.2d 690, we held that where a special answer consistent with the general verdict must be set aside as unsupported by the evidence, that does not impeach the general verdict; although a jury errs in answering a special interrogatory, their general verdict is sustained if it is supported by the evidence, that is if there is sufficient evidence on issues other than the one raised by the interrogatory to justify the verdict. And, in Ervin v. Neil (1980), 81 Ill. App. 3d 5, 400 N.E.2d 667, the court suggested that where a jury to which no special interrogatory had been posed volunteered a special finding inconsistent with the general verdict, the special finding should be ignored, and judgment entered on the general verdict — although the jury’s response was no less revealing of its state of mind than a requested answer would have been. Finally, a third recent case, Lesperance v. Wolff (1979), 79 Ill. App. 3d 136, 398 N.E.2d 360, seems to approve the Zygadlo rule I feel we should follow. The idea that it is improper to enter judgment on the general verdict because that verdict is rendered a “nullity” when it is inconsistent with the special answer is argument by epithet. The characterization of the general verdict as a nullity has no roots in established legal thought, or in the customary expression of the rule that the special controls the general. Stripped of the mediating epithet, the reasoning is that if a general verdict seldom controls, it can never do so. Such a statement is not logical. The interrogatory statute does not, therefore, prevent us from entering judgment on the general verdict in this case. Moreover, it is pertinent to observe that the rule that a special answer controls over an inconsistent general verdict — the only statutory provision with even indirect relevance to this case — was well established at common law; and virtually all the States, with or without statutes oh the subject, adhere to it. (See Borries; 27 R.C.L. Verdict §53 (1920); see generally Clementson, Special Verdicts and Findings By Juries (1905).) Striking down the Illinois statute which simply codifies this rule will not, therefore, change the rule or solve our problem, but will leave us more or less where we started, grappling with the problem of a special answer unsupported by the evidence. I see no reason in this case for deciding whether such a statute is constitutional.