Court Opinion

ID: 9726414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:48:07.568511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:26.911838
License: Public Domain

*12COMPTON, J.
I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which reverses the damage award in favor of plaintiff.
My disagreement with the majority stems not from any belief on my part that the jury’s arithmetic was correct or that the damages were not excessive but from the fact that the declarations of the jurors, which the majority uses to uncover the error, are clearly incompetent as evidence upon which to impeach the verdict.
I start with the prosposition that the use of juror affidavits in connection with motions for new trial has reached epidemic proportions and should be discouraged wherever possible. It should be a very rare occasion, indeed, where the declarations of jurors, given after a trial, concerning what went on during jury deliberations should be used as a basis for upsetting the verdict which was returned.
In my opinion, Krouse v. Graham (1977) 19 Cal.3d 58 [137 Cal.Rptr. 863, 562 P.2d 1022], upon which the majority relies, was wrongly decided and I do not hesitate to suggest that the Supreme Court should rethink the rationale of that case.
No amount of semantics or legal legerdemain can convert a jury’s mathematical computations from a “mental process” to an “overt act.” Even accepting the correctness of the Krouse rationale (something which I concede we are bound to do), the error was infinitely easier to discern and thus more “objective” in nature than is the case here. It takes some rather subtle reasoning to “puzzle out” the jury’s mistake in the case at bench.
It is just this sort of exercise that the language of Evidence Code section 1150 was designed to prevent. I read that section as meaning that a juror’s testimony is only competent to impeach a verdict when it relates to improper extraneous influences having been brought to bear on the jury. Even in that extreme case evidence of the effect of such influence on the juror’s mind is inadmissible.
Here there was no extraneous influence to which the jury was subjected nor was the jury guilty of any misconduct. They received no evidence other than that which the court admitted in the trial. The declarations of the jurors revealed nothing but their mental processes in arriving at the amount of damages to be awarded.
*13Finally, while I am tempted to apply the doctrine of invited error to the plaintiff because he produced these declarations, I am of the opinion that the language of the statute is absolute. “No evidence is admissible... concerning the mental processes.... ” means to me that such declarations are not competent for any purpose and it makes no difference how they found their way into the record.
The majority appears to believe that the damages awarded were excessive. If so, it should be so stated. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 657, subdivision 5, excessive damages are grounds for granting a new trial. The application of that subdivision, however, does not require any evidence concerning the jurors’ conduct in the jury room or their mental processes. The determination of whether the damages are excessive is made simply on the basis of the evidence presented at the trial and the amount of the jury’s award.
It is wrong in my opinion to follow the circuitous path of examining the jurors’ declarations, finding an error in the arithmetic and then calling it “jury misconduct” when the real vice, if one exists, is that from an objective view the damages were excessive.
I would affirm the judgment in its entirety.
A petition for a rehearing was denied January 5, 1981. Compton, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 5, 1981. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.