Court Opinion

ID: 9705589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:12:53.817428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:12.679008
License: Public Domain

KERN, Senior Judge,
dissenting:
I am unable to agree to affirm the trial court’s order overturning the jury’s verdict in favor of appellant/defendant and granting a new trial which resulted in a new verdict in favor of appellee/plaintiff. In my view, the record reveals that the conscientious trial judge “misremembered” the evidence and instructions presented to the jury at the September trial — which found for the appellant/defendant — when he ruled in November, without a transcript, that the jury’s verdict was “against the great weight of the evidence,” (Supp.R. # 1, at 5) and ordered a new trial. In addition, I note certain factors which went into the trial court’s determination that I deem inappropriate. Accordingly, I conclude the trial court abused its discretion in overturning the jury’s verdict and ordering a new trial. Desmond v. Robertson, 211 A.2d 775, 776 (D.C.1965); Rich v. District of Columbia, 410 A.2d 528, 535-36 (D.C.1979).
The record reflects that the theory of the trial court in overturning the jury’s verdict in favor of the defendant was “that the great weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that this driver, Ms. Fisher [the defendant], was simply following too closely, which was negligent, and that her negligence was a proximate cause of this collision.” (Supp.R. # 1, at 8)
The trial court went on to state (Supp.R. # 1, at 9):
As I remember the testimony, there was no indication that she had allowed a proper interval of space between herself and the car in front. All of a sudden we have the very occurrence for which following too closely is the explanation. I think in this case it was precisely the explanation, and that is what the great weight of the evidence, I think indicated. [Emphasis added.]
The transcript of the trial which this court has before it and which the trial court did not have the advantage of reviewing before ruling reflects quite the opposite.
Thus, plaintiff testified (Tr. 46-47):
Traffic was medium to heavy. And traffic was moving and then all of a sudden it stopped so I stopped. If I didn’t stop I would have hit the car in front of me. He went on to testify (Tr. 47):
We were sitting there for, I guess, 15 to 20 seconds and then we were hit from the rear by Ms. Fisher_ It was a hard impact.
*1101On cross-examination, the plaintiff testified (Tr. 63):
When I stopped my ear it was few seconds. She didn’t hit my car as soon as it stopped. We were sitting there for a while and then she impacted my car.
The plaintiffs mother who was a front-seat passenger in plaintiffs auto also testified (Tr. 74):
My son stopped and then ... about 15 or 16 seconds or something [defendant] came along and hit us in the rear.
This witness asserted in her testimony (Tr. 76) that the defendant told her after the accident that “she [the defendant] was looking in the mirror and when she got up she was too close that she couldn’t stop.”
The plaintiffs fiance who was riding in the back seat of his car at the time of the accident testified (Tr. 95-96) that after the accident the defendant “said she was on her way to work and that she was running a little late and that she had took her eyes off the road and was looking somewhere and she looked back and it was too late for her to stop.” This witness on cross-examination denied (Tr. 106) that the plaintiff had stopped quickly-
A fair reading of the transcript (and certainly a reasonable hearing of the testimony by the jurors at trial) was that the plaintiffs case rested upon the theory that the defendant had been inattentive to her driving and such inattention caused the accident. Indeed, the plaintiffs attorney called the defendant as an adverse witness and questioned her as follows (Tr. 122):
Is it not a fact that you told both ladies [plaintiffs passengers] that you looked in the mirror and took your eyes off the road and all of a sudden this accident happened?
The defendant responded:
I had to look in my mirror.
Whereupon plaintiffs counsel asked:
You had no reason to look in your rear view mirror?
The defendant answered (Tr. 123):
No, I didn’t.[1]
We're talking about an individual [the defendant], in my view, who's not paying attention. That’s why this accident ... happened.
It is interesting to note the trial court’s instruction to the jury (Tr. 170):
Now, let me finally say in this matter of negligence that the mere fact that an accident happened does not necessarily mean that any party to the action was negligent. On the contrary, the legal presumption is that reasonable care was exercised by all parties. The burden of proof is upon the party charging negligence....
The court instructed the jury (Tr. 173):
So it’s up to you to decide under the facts of this particular case who was negligent with respect to the accident, if anyone was.
And in connection with that you may consider that the following driver has the primary duty to avoid the collision but it does not necessarily follow that because there was a collision the following driver must automatically have been at fault.
The record simply does not support the trial court’s determination that “the great weight of the evidence” was that the defendant was following too closely. In addition, the trial court referred to certain other factors that caused it to overturn the jury’s verdict and order a new trial. Thus, the court stated (Supp.R. # 1, at 17):
I wanted to make clear that I don’t set aside these things willy-nilly, I haven’t done it up to now. I think this was a fluke, explained largely by the personality of the advocate and not by the evidence in the case. I think the evidence was overwhelming that this driver was following too closely, and that is negligence. [Emphasis added.]
Interestingly, the trial court in making its ruling (1) declined the offer of defendant’s counsel to allow him to order a copy of the transcript so as to “be precise as to what was said about following distance and speed ...” (Supp.R. # 1, at 15), and (2) factored into its determination to grant a new trial certain *1102other factors that are troubling. Thus, the court stated (Supp.R. # 1, at 9):
There is another component of this which I think may have affected things, and that is that in this particular trial ... [defendant’s attorney] had a very appealing kind of low-key, ingratiating style, and ... [plaintiffs attorney], for whatever reason, was rather heavy-handed and a little abrasive particularly in his cross-examination of the Defendant. I think that because she was sort of a nice, appealing young woman and it looked like ... [plaintiffs attorney] was bearing down on her a little hard, I think some of that may have influenced the result.
The court went on to state (Supp.R. # 1, at 10):
I would be somewhat loathe to disturb this verdict if this had been a three-week trial, very expensive, all kinds of witnesses flown in from all over the country, and the cost of a retrial was going to be very substantial for all concerned.
That is not true here. This was an extremely short trial; I would say it took about a day or a day and a half.
It is troublesome that (a) the effectiveness of the respective trial attorneys, (b) the appealing presence of one of the parties, and (c) the length of the trial appear to have played some part in the court’s determination to overrule the jury’s verdict and require the parties to go to trial again.2
In sum, justice was best served in my view by having a jury composed of a cross-section of the community spend a day and a half focusing on the particular facts and circumstances here, viewing the witnesses and weighing their testimony, and then and there engaging in deliberation before rendering a collective judgment on the cause of the rear-end collision, as opposed to having a busy trial judge, who admittedly was “pressed for time” (Supp.R. # 1, at 2), render his verdict based upon recollection, not record, some two months after the trial.3 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. The plaintiff’s attorney had advised the trial court prior to trial concerning the accident’s cause (Tr. 11):

. Apparently, the trial court also factored into its determination that the evidence of defendant's negligence was so substantial as to require a new trial the further evidence that the defendant received and did not contest a ticket for the traffic offense of following too closely. (Supp.R. # 1, at 8) However, the defendant gave an explanation which the jury apparently accepted but the judge did not.
Defendant at trial explained (Tr. 129) that she was given a traffic ticket by the plaintiff’s fellow police officer for following too closely, which she testified she signed “when he told me to sign it."
Defendant further explained (Tr. 148-49) that the officer who knew the plaintiff and responded to the scene of the accident "told me that he found me at fault for the accident and gave me a ticket for following too closely and told me to sign it." She testified (Tr. 149) that she was on a stretcher at the scene of the accident "upside down” when signing it. She testified (Tr. 149-50):
[B]ecause the officer told me that it was my fault and I didn’t know otherwise. And rather than waiting for trial and fighting it I thought a $25 ticket — just paying it would have been the much easier thing to do.

. The very fact that this panel cannot agree on the proper inferences to be drawn from the conflicting testimony as set forth in the record also is a further reason why the outcome of this case should have been left to the jury, which heard the witnesses and decided the conflicts in testimony at the time.