Court Opinion

ID: 9472444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:00:15.052371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:56.215341
License: Public Domain

BAILEY ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge,
(Concurring).
I concur in the court’s comprehensive opinion, but with two reservations that I believe I should mention. A defendant may be seriously prejudiced in the jury’s eyes on the merits by evidence admissible only on the issue of punitive damages, and the corresponding arguments — a bad man, or a very rich man, etc., etc. — just as before the existence of insurance was commonly known, it was felt prejudicial to let insurance leak out, and still may be. Similarly, plaintiffs often object to trying liability first, and damages afterwards. You cannot “show” these things, and there seems a certain inconsistency in conceding there is a “likelihood” and then saying it was not shown. The likelihood is of emotional feelings that cannot normally be shown. Further, the fact that some of the evidence would be repetitious is not necessarily an answer. If the trial resumes immediately, the jury may be cursorily reminded by counsel of evidence which need not be repeated. How much extra time is involved in two trials may be very questionable. And, of course, if no liability is found, the punitive damage portion of the first trial is pure waste.
Having said this, I am a great believer in district court discretion. I would only hope that requests for bifurcated trials not be too readily rejected because we have sanctioned this denial. (I am the more ready to accept it here because fraud was involved in the main case.)
Second, in this instance likelihood of prejudice by a combined trial, rather than not *72being shown, bore the most poisonous fruit. I am deeply troubled by the outrageous Pontius Pilate jury argument. There is often merit in counsels’ fear that to object serves to emphasize, rather than to defuse. While I realize that courts may be thinking about their charge to the jury, and cannot be expected to sit on the edge of their chairs to police every remark, the very fact that improper argument can create this heads-I-win, tails-you-lose situation for the opponent should suggest to the court the desirability of sua sponte intervention upon hearing a serious impropriety. A judge presiding over a trial has greater duties than simply to rule on objections. I believe this plaintiff’s particular argument (improper also, incidentally, because it contained counsel’s personal opinion), should have struck a judge who was listening with only one ear, and should have produced an immediate offsetting criticism.
Of more specific importance, however, this was not the sort of argument, like, say, bringing in substance improperly that it might be hoped the jury would overlook. Rather, I believe counsel here could have objected at the end of the argument and sought a judicial response without fear of emphasis or backlash. I accordingly go entirely along with the court’s disposition.