Court Opinion

ID: 9455607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:26:59.375391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:39.379135
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the determination of my brothers that there was no reversible error of law in the failure *1134to grant a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. In doing so, I wish to launch no attack on the principle stated by the majority that once a trial judge has determined that a verdict is not against the weight of the evidence, his determination cannot be set aside when denial of a new trial is reviewed on appeal from the final judgment. Cf. Portman v. American Home Products Corp., 201 F.2d 847, 848 (2d Cir. 1953) (grant of a new trial held not reviewable). But here Judge Mansfield quite clearly made the determination that there was “overwhelming evidence [which] would militate against the plaintiff's claim.”
Although on appeal we should defer to a trial judge’s evaluation of the weight of the evidence, we need not defer to conclusions of law based on such a determination. The view taken below of a trial judge’s role in passing on a post-verdict motion was articulated to be that:
“We may not disturb the jury’s verdict unless there was no substantial evidence to support it.”
This statement of the law is quite correct if “disturbing the jury’s verdict” means entering judgment notwithstanding the verdict. It is not correct if it means ordering a new trial. As stated in Professor Wright’s treatise on Federal Courts:
“It has long been understood that if the trial judge is not satisfied with the verdict of a jury, .he has the right —and indeed the duty — to set aside the verdict and order a new trial.” Id. at 420 (2d ed. 1970).
Once the trial judge has made the determination that the weight of the evidence is “overwhelmingly” against the verdict, he has the duty to exercise his discretion in view of the overall setting of the trial. 6A Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 59.08[5] at 3819 (2d ed. 1966). The appellate court should be able to insist that a legal formulation be utilized in the exercise of this discretion which recognizes the distinction between the power to grant a new trial when the evidence is merely such that “the trial judge would have reached a different verdict” and the power to grant a new trial when the verdict is “overwhelmingly against the weight of the evidence.”
Courts always seem to encounter semantic difficulty in articulating verbal standards for evaluating the weight of the evidence in post-verdict motions. I have little confidence that this dissent, when applied to another set of circumstances, would enlighten the dark corners of the problem. Nevertheless, on the facts of this particular case, I am left with the firm conviction that there has been a miscarriage of justice. Recognizing the strict limitations on review of the denial of a motion for a new trial, 6A Moore, Federal Practice ¶[ 59.08[5] at 3816 (2d ed. 1966), yet believing the role of a trial judge should be more than to serve as a conduit between the jury and the clerk’s office for entry of judgment, I would remand to the trial judge so that he may rule again on the motion for a new trial in light of his own evaluation of the evidence and this court’s discussion of the extent of his discretion.