Court Opinion

ID: 9462481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:42:10.774347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:36.834136
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting).
I agree with the views expressed in Parts I and II of the majority’s opinion. I am constrained, however, to dissent from its views as to the reduction of judgment as set forth in Part III. Since I believe the district court correctly determined the amount to be set off against the treble damage award, I would affirm the judgment of the district court in all respects.
The district court directed the jury to compute damages from August 24, 1971, the date that the defendant Wilson joined the conspiracy, rather than from its inception. The district court appropriately trebled the compensatory verdict of the jury as returned, $25,000, and reached the sum of $75,000.
The question then before the district court was the credit to be allowed under Flintkote v. Lysfjord, 246 F.2d 368 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 355 U.S. 835, 78 S.Ct. 54, 2 L.Ed.2d 46 (1957), for the settlement entered into between the plaintiff and Cooper-Jarrett and Matlack, Inc. Since the $60,000 settlement covered the entire period of the conspiracy, the district court properly determined that only 83 percent of this sum, or $49,800, should be attributed to the post-August 24, 1971, damage period presumably considered by the jury.1 In view of the district court’s instructions to the jury, this allocation was proper and was not inconsistent with the Flintkote principle. The net realized and the sum for which it entered judgment was $25,200. I believe the principle applied and its mathematical computation was correct.
Baughman contends that Wilson’s liability as a co-conspirator should extend to the beginning of the conspiracy and should not have been confined by the district court’s charge to the period after August 24, 1971. As he and the majority recognize, however, Baughman’s failure to object to the instruction precludes him from raising the alleged error on appeal under Fed.R.Civ.P. 51. Hoffman v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 485 F.2d 132, 138-39 (3d Cir. 1973). Hence, the majority states that it does not reach the issue of whether Wilson’s liability should properly include the period prior to August 24, 1971. “The only open question,” according to the majority, “is what calculations should be made in arriving at the proper *536Zenith credit against the $75,000 judgment.”
Having thus disavowed any intention of considering Wilson’s liability beyond the period referred to in the district court’s charge, the majority then proceeds to remold the jury verdict to include, in effect, pre-August 24, 1971, damages. It deducts the entire settlement amount of $60,000 from the total potential trebled damages of $90,600 and awards Baughman the difference, thus allowing him all of his damages prior to August 24, 1971, despite the unchallenged instruction limiting damages to the period subsequent to that date.
Such a remolding of the verdict carries implications for the seventh amendment right to trial by jury. The United States Supreme Court has held that the proper remedy for an inadequate verdict is the grant of a new trial rather than the assessment of additional damages. Although a federal court may substitute a remission of the excess for a new trial where a verdict is too large, it cannot enlarge damages in the same way.
[T]he remittitur has the effect of merely lopping off an- excrescence. But where the verdict is too small, an increase by the court is a bald addition of something which in no sense can be said to be included in the verdict.
Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 486, 55 S.Ct. 296, 301, 79 L.Ed. 603 (1935). The Court concluded that federal courts have no power to so invade the right to a jury determination of the extent of a defendant’s liability.
In the instant case, the majority has ignored established principles by disturbing a judgment entered on the verdict of a jury supported by sufficient evidence, in spite of the absence of objection to the charge. Hoffman, supra; Moomey v. Massey Ferguson, Inc., 429 F.2d 1184, 1187 (10th Cir. 1970); Manning v. New York Telephone Co., 388 F.2d 910, 912 (2d Cir. 1968); Green v. American Tobacco Co., 325 F.2d 673, 676 (5th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 943, 84 S.Ct. 1349, 12 L.Ed.2d 306 (1964). There is here no fundamental error requiring an exception to the general rule.
I would affirm the judgment of the district court.

. The district court reached its 83 percent figure by using pre- and post-August 24, 1971, figures untrebled. The majority claims this calculation fails to reflect defendants’ liability for treble damages over the entire period. The identical result is reached, however, if all the figures are trebled. The trebled post-August 24, 1971, damages are $75,000 and are 83 percent of the total trebled damages of $90,600. It is that percentage which should be used, and was used by the district court, to apportion the settlement amount over the two periods under consideration.