Court Opinion

ID: 9751455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:28:31.350967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:18.805461
License: Public Domain

Hulburd, C. J.,
dissenting. When the majority say that “We are bound to pass on these rulings as a matter of law without the privilege of choice based on a weighing of the evidence which is the discretionary right of the trial court” — when this statement is made— we have to consider what it means. Reduced to a concrete application, it comes to this: any substantial evidence, no matter how slight, may be regarded by the trial court in its discretion as a sufficient basis for setting aside a verdict, against opposing evidence no matter how strong. I cannot comfortably commit myself to such a position although we have numerous decision tending to this effect. (See, however, Spaulding v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 94 Vt. 42, 57, 109 Atl. 22.)
In Lind v. Schenley Industries Inc., 278 F.2d 79, 88, the matter of setting aside verdicts came under examination and was fully discussed in majority and dissenting opinions. The majority there say that where a verdict is set aside solely on the ground that it is against the weight of the evidence, “it then becomes the duty of the appellate tribunal to exercise a closer degree of scrutiny and supervision” than it would where a verdict is set aside because of other specific or pernicious elements which may have intruded into the trial. Perhaps this is the equivalent of saying that the appellate court has a limited discretion to review a trial court’s discretion. This the majority of this Court would deny.
In any event, we are all agreed that the appellate court may intervene where the trial court has abused its discretion. Certainly some sort of review must be had to determine in a given case whether this is so. Moreover, I think we can generalize to this extent, as was done in Lind v. Schenley Industries, Inc., supra, and say that whenever the subject of the litigation before the court is simple and easily comprehended by any intelligent layman, so that the jury’s main function is to determine the veracity of the witnesses, it is not for the trial court to override the jury’s determination and substitute its judgment for that of the jury by setting aside the verdict as being against the weight of the evidence, and if the trial court does so it abuses its legal discretion. Where each side of an issue is fairly supported by the evidence, as was true in this case, the trial court ought not to usurp the *498prime function of the jury as the trier of the facts. We have no doubt that any uncertainty as to the trial court’s action should be resolved in its favor, and that the reviewing court should read the record in the light of the advantage which the trial court has in hearing the evidence first hand. It must be borne in mind, however, that this is an advantage which is shared by the jury as well.
Where, as in this case, the burden of proof is working against the action of the trial court so as to constitute a further hurdle to its action, it makes it that much more difficult to sustain the trial court’s action. I am unable to do so in this case.