Court Opinion

ID: 9714455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:37:48.69487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:26.126225
License: Public Domain

SHIELDS, Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur. However, I must add a word of caution to the discussion of special findings and interrogatories based upon Broshears v. State (1992), Ind.App., 604 N.E.2d 639, clarified & reh'g denied (1993), 609 N.E.2d 1. Notwithstanding the assistance provided by these mechanisms, in view of our supreme court's decision in State Through Highway Dep't. v. Snyder (1992), 594 N.E.2d 783, I question whether the special verdicts and/or interrogatories, expressly encouraged in Broshears, and tacitly encouraged in this case, can perform the function these opinions envision. Snyder involved a claim of inconsistent verdicts in a negligence action against an individual defendant, pursuant to the Comparative Fault Act (Act), and against the State of Indiana pursuant to the common law. The State argued the statutorily required language of the verdict forms used under the Act should be treated as "a special verdict or interrogatory to be compared to the general verdict returned by the jury in [the] claim against the State." Id. at 786.
In response, a majority of the court emphasized that
[s]pecial verdicts and interrogatories were eliminated by Indiana Trial Rule 49. Thus the verdict ... cannot be considered by us as a special verdict or interrogatory. We acknowledge that the statutory scheme of the Comparative Fault Act requires that several verdict forms be given to the jury. We view this as an attempt by the legislature to prescribe a procedure by which the jury might be guided through the process of determining fault and assessing damages, and we do not intend to discourage the use of these forms in assisting the jury to properly determine fault and award damages in controversies tried under the Comparative Fault Act. However, we will not consider such verdict forms to be special verdicts or interrogatories. We hold that such forms as are prescribed by the Act will be treated as general verdicts and may not be used to impeach the general verdict returned here in favor of Snyder and against the State.
Id.
This statement of policy, followed to its logical conclusion, suggests that any details provided by a jury as to the process by which it arrived at its general verdict served only that limited purpose.