Court Opinion

ID: 9765506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:04:18.229148+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:08.893805
License: Public Domain

VANCE, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from that part of the majority opinion which holds that an attorney, in his argument to the jury, may explain the effect of the verdict insofar as it may allocate a percentage of fault to a party.
For the jury system to maintain its integrity it must be required to find facts objectively. A jury should not be permitted, or encouraged, to reach a result oriented verdict by reason of sympathy or prejudice and thus make its findings of fact to support that result. The end result should be determined by the facts which are found to exist. The fact finding should not be based upon finding facts which will justify a result.
A jury’s apportionment of fault in its verdict should be based solely upon its determination from the evidence of the percentage of fault that should be attributed to the parties respectively. There can be no purpose whatever in arguing to the jury that a plaintiff’s recovery will be reduced by the percentage of fault allocated to him except to play upon the sympathy of the jury and encourage it to allocate less fault to the plaintiff than is warranted by the evidence. Nor could there by any legitimate purpose in multiparty litigation in permitting comment upon the consequence of the verdict to the effect that Defendant “A” is solvent and Defendant “B” is insolvent, and therefore the allocation of any substantial degree of fault to Defendant “B” will have the effect of reducing the plaintiff’s recovery.
A defense lawyer might just as well argue to the jury that the allocation of fault to the defendant increases the remedy against the defendant and would therefore increase the insurance rates of the juror.
All such arguments are intended for one purpose only, that is to encourage the jury to do something through sympathy or prejudice that it would not do based solely upon the evidence. This is simply an effort to destroy the integrity of the jury, which this court should not condone.
*510Furthermore, in Mitchell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 781 S.W.2d 510 (1989), rendered today, we have reached exactly the opposite conclusion. We held there that an attorney in a criminal case cannot comment to the jury upon the consequence of its verdict. In doing so we followed the precedent, established in Payne v. Commonwealth, Ky., 623 S.W.2d 867 (1981), and Edwards v. Commonwealth, Ky., 554 S.W.2d 380 (1977), that consideration of the future consequences of a verdict has no legitimate place in a jury’s finding of fact.
Of course, it could be said that the rule is simply different in criminal cases than in civil cases, but that is no adequate answer. Neither is it sufficient to say that a tort case is more complex. In both civil and criminal cases, the jury must determine the facts. In a tort case such as this it is only necessary for a jury to determine the amount of the plaintiffs damage and the relative degree of fault of the parties. In making these determinations, the question of the consequences of the determination is irrelevant.
In a criminal case the jury must determine the fact of guilt or innocence. Whether or not the jury agrees with the legislative determination as to the sentence to be imposed upon a finding of guilt should not be considered in the determination of guilt or innocence.
This court should not, in my opinion, hand down on the same day two opinions, one of which allows an attorney to comment to the jury about the consequences of its verdict, and the other which prohibits such comment. It is a matter of principle.
GANT, J., joins in this dissent.