Court Opinion

ID: 9843272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:31:52.386826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:37.014088
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree that the majority’s interpretation of the jury instructions and the effect of the jury’s answers to the district court’s interrogatories is a reasonable one. While I further agree that we review the district court’s application of state law de novo, Koch Eng’g Co. v. Gibralter Cas. Co., 78 F.3d 1291, 1294 (8th Cir.1996), we review the district court’s determination of the underlying issue-whether the $100,000 verdict was meant to compensate Anne Sloan in addition to her settlement with the tort-feasor-for clear error, Garver & Garver, P.A. v. Little Rock Sanitary & Sewer Comm., 300 Ark. 620, 781 S.W.2d 24, 30 (1989). I find none here, and would thus not disturb the district court’s decision on this matter.
The jury in this ease was informed that Sloan had settled with the other driver involved in the auto wreck for $100,000. In such an instance, it is obviously preferable for the court to instruct the jury in a way that leaves no doubt as to whether the jury award is meant to be paid in addition to the settlement. See, e.g., id, 781 S.W.2d at 29-30 (“Perhaps it would have been better if the instructions or interrogatories had directed the jury to fix the amount of damages after first deducting the settlement amount .... ”). The district court did not do so here. Instead, it simply asked the jury ,to state the amount of damages Sloan had sustained, to which the jury answered $100,000. The absence of definitive instructions and interrogatories left the district court and this court in the unfortunate position of trying to ascertain what the jury really meant by its $100,000 award: was it supposed to represent a global damages figure (as the majority *857suggests), or had the jury already discounted its award by Sloan’s earlier settlement (as the district court found)? The question is open to both interpretations, neither of which I find particularly more compelling or likely than the other. I thus cannot say the district court committed clear error in finding the jury award was intended to compensate Sloan beyond her settlement, and would affirm the district court. At the very least, Sloan should be afforded the opportunity for a fair resolution of her claim through a new trial with definitive jury instructions and interrogatories.