Court Opinion

ID: 9712634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:57:37.452479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:13.427112
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE EBERSPACHER, dissenting: Without referring to Supreme Court Rule 366 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 38, par. 366), my brethren have apparently given its provision authorizing “the order of a partial new trial” a more liberal interpretation than it has heretofore been given. To have one jury determine one element of the damages awarded and another jury another element, is not, in my judgment, what was contemplated by adoption of the rule. I find a complete absence of authority for the unprecedented remandment for a new trial, not on the issue of damages only, nor on all the issues, but for the sole purpose of retrying only one of several issues included in the question of damages in a Federal Employer’s Liability Act (45 U.S.C. §51 et seq. (1970)) case. I agree as my brethren state that “It is well settled that an appellate court may limit the issues to be resolved upon remandment for a new trial” and that the five cases they cite so hold. However, not one of those cases is authority for the remandment of a case for a new trial on the issue of the percentage, if any, by which plaintiff’s total damages must be reduced because of his contributory negligence. In the Gasoline Products case the United States Supreme Court found the issues to be so interwoven that they reversed a judgment limiting a new trial to the issue of damages only. In the 1914 case of Norfolk Southern R.R. Co. the United States Supreme Court approved a new trial on the issue of damages only, in a case in which they found there was no evidence of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff. In the case at hand, because there was evidence of contributory negligence, which issue was withheld from the jury, we granted a new trial on the issue of damages only. In the Norfolk case the Supreme Court admonished that it did not commend the practice under F.E.L.A. In Paul Harris Furniture Co. the Illinois Supreme Court approved a new trial on the issues of damages only “in a case where the damage issue is so separable and distinct from the issue of liability that a trial of it alone may be had without injustice.” In Brunner this court refused to order a new trial on the issue of damages only and affirmed the judgment entered on the verdict. In Washburn this court remanded for a new trial on the issue of damages only and referred the trial court to Cromling v. Pittsburg & Lake Erie R.R. Co. (3d Cir. 1963), 327 F.2d 142, in which after the court had ordered a new trial limited to the issue of damages, there was, as here, a petition for rehearing from which it was “apparent that the parties are in doubt as to how they are to proceed in the court below.” The court then held “No modification of our original judgment is required and accordingly none will be made.” I am of the opinion that the petition for rehearing in this case should be disposed of in the same manner as was the one in Cromling.