Court Opinion

ID: 9854024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:59:26.343349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:52.675850
License: Public Domain

Justice ERICKSON
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Linda Gambrell Eddy, individually and as mother of Daniel Gambrell (plaintiff-respondents), brought a malpractice action against Sheldon J. Ravin, D.O. and David R. McKee, D.O. (defendant-petitioners) for injuries suffered by Daniel Gambrell at the time of his birth. The plaintiffs alleged that Dr. McKee was negligent in providing Linda Gambrell Eddy with prenatal care. Dr. Ravin was charged with negligence in the delivery of Daniel Gambrell that caused shoulder dystocia. A jury trial ended with a verdict in favor of Dr. Ravin and Dr. McKee. The court of appeals reversed because of juror misconduct and ordered a new trial. Gambrell v. Ravin, 764 P.2d 362 (Colo.App.1988). On certiorari review the majority has ordered that the plaintiffs be granted a new trial. I agree, but only because the court failed to instruct the jury on res ipsa loquitur. I would affirm the court of appeals conclusion that the failure to instruct the jury on res ipsa loquitur, under the facts of this case, requires a new trial. Id.
In Wiser v. People, 732 P.2d 1139 (Colo.1987), a majority of the court upheld the defendant’s conviction and, in reviewing the evidence of juror misconduct, held that the relevant question is whether there is a “reasonable possibility” that extraneous contact or influence affected the verdict to the detriment of the defendant. Id. at 1142. A number of decisions from other jurisdictions have addressed juror misconduct in criminal cases and provide some support for the creation of the new test in criminal cases. Two members of the court specially concurred in the affirmance of Wiser’s conviction and stated that a defen*823dant who makes a motion for a new trial bears the burden of proving actual prejudice when asserting juror misconduct and that Wiser had not shown actual prejudice. See People v. Mackey, 185 Colo. 24, 521 P.2d 910 (1974). The special concurrence in Wiser emphasized that a new trial should not be granted unless the defendant establishes that actual prejudice from juror misconduct or extraneous juror conduct is more probable than not. Wiser, 732 P.2d at 1144 (Erickson, J., specially concurring). No support can be found in any case that we have previously decided for applying the principles of Wiser to a civil proceeding. All of the cases relied on by the majority in Wiser were criminal cases.
Prior to the announcement of this case, the standard for measuring juror misconduct in a civil case was well established in Colorado. The issue under Butters v. Dee Wann, 147 Colo. 352, 363 P.2d 494 (1961), is not whether the irregular matter actually influenced the result, but whether it had the capacity of doing so. Accord Canton Oil Corp. v. District Court, 731 P.2d 687 (Colo.1987).
I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the Butters and Canton formulation of the test for setting aside a jury verdict in a civil cases does not differ in any substantial respect from the test articulated for criminal cases in People v. Wiser.
The criminal standard in Wiser, which the majority now extends to jury misconduct in civil trials, ignores the differences between the constitutional guarantees afforded a criminal defendant and litigants in a civil setting. The contumacious conduct of the jurors in Butters v. Dee Wann and Canton Oil Corp. v. District Court was far greater than that complained of in Wiser v. People. By adopting the “reasonable possibility standard,” we are deprecating the finality of a jury verdict in a civil case. In Wiser, the district judge held that a juror’s use of a dictionary to understand the court’s instructions and another juror’s inquiry about the source of the court’s instructions were insufficient to establish that the defendant was prejudiced by juror misconduct. The “reasonable possibility standard” adopted in Wiser did not require a new trial under the facts in that case, but the standard has expanded the constitutional protection of a defendant in a criminal case to a fair and impartial jury. I do not believe that jury trials in civil cases should be subject to the same standard. The Butters v. Dee Wann standard would not, in my opinion, require a new trial in this case.
Accordingly, I dissent to the adoption of the “reasonable possibility standard” to gauge juror misconduct, but concur that a new trial is required because of the failure to instruct on res ipsa loquitur.
I am authorized to say that Justice YOLLACK joins in the concurrence and dissent.