Court Opinion

ID: 9462223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:35:14.927627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:28.387103
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge
(concurring):
I concur fully in the excellent opinion of Judge Coleman written for the Court. I only suggest that upon remand the complex factual issues concerning performance extensions which are discussed in Part VIII of the majority opinion,1 could be resolved most expeditiously if the trial Court utilized the marvelous tool of a general charge with special interrogatories under the provisions of F.R.Civ.P. 49(a).2 See generally, Brown, Federal Special Verdicts: The Doubt Eliminator, 1968, 44 F.R.D. 338; Joiner, Jury Trials — Improved Procedures, 1970, 48 F.R.D. 79, 86; Wright, The Use Of Special Verdicts In Federal Court, 1965, 38 F.R.D. 199; See also Modern Federal Practice Digest, Fed.Civ.Proc. 2231-41.
Had this procedure been utilized at the initial trial of the case at hand, it is quite likely that much of the retrial would have been unnecessary, for this Court, on appeal, would have been able *957to ferret out those issues which were unsubstantiated by the verdict or were not jury issues as a matter of law.3

. See pp. 955-956.

. Too much emphasis cannot be placed on the fact that I am speaking solely about 49(a) and not 49(b) which is a trap for the unwary lawyer or trial or appellate Judge. The distinction between the two is that 49(a) melds the general jury charge with the juries’ answers to special interrogatories which are controlling. 49(b) on the other hand launches both counsel and the trial Judge on a treacherous tightrope walk caused by the fact that under 49(b) the general verdict (not charge) and the special answers must not conflict, for if they do, both are extinguished. For further discussion of this distinction see Brown, Federal Special Verdicts: The Doubt Eliminator, supra at 339-40.

. See Horne v. Georgia Southern and Florida Railway Co., 5 Cir., 1970, 421 F.2d 975, 980 (Brown, C. J., concurring) where we were able to affirm the holding of the trial Court and avoid retrial because the use of 49(a) special interrogatories allowed us to conclude that the erroneous decision of one issue was harmless error. Only because of the special interrogatories, one of which categorically found that the railroad company defendant had been guilty of willful and wanton negligence which proximateiy caused the injury to the plaintiff, were we able to demonstrate the harmlessness of a jury finding of intervening cause. For other cases demonstrating the utility of 49(a) in avoiding confusion in complex cases see e. g., Little v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 5 Cir., 1970, 426 F.2d 509, 512 (Brown, C. J., concurring); American Oil Co. v. Hart, 5 Cir., 1966, 356 F.2d 657, 659. See also Griffin v. Matherne, 5 Cir., 1973, 471 F.2d 911 (where the use of 49(a) by the trial Court allowed us to affirm the judgment as to one defendant while reversing the judgment as to two others and thus we were able to avoid the unnecessary relitigation of issues which were correctly decided at the initial trial of the case).