Court Opinion

ID: 9696767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:57:52.742998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:26.690895
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
ORDER
Separate Statement by
NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
as to why he voted to rehear this case:
By a six to three vote, rehearing en banc haS' been denied. Thus, a majority is of the view that the division opinion is not a departure from decisional holdings of this court. See Rule 40(c) of the Rules of this court. At least on the question respecting the role of the jury on probable cause, we do not change the basic rule, and this case is confined to its particular evi-dentiary and procedural facts. It does not hold that the jury instructions on probable cause are a model and correct way of guiding resolution of that issue. Nor has the division opinion been viewed as inconsistent with established law respecting when probable cause should be decided by a jury. This part of our ruling is apparently confined to the Virginia statute of willful concealment.
The petition ,for rehearing makes a telling point with reference to an internal inconsistency in our holding respecting the motion for a new trial as it was based on *779an allegation of passion and prejudice evidenced by the amount of the verdict. The majority observed that this point had been overlooked by the trial judge. The majority opinion states that the new trial motion alleged “that the size of the verdict was the result of passion and prejudice.” (at 775.) That is not so. The trial judge said in the first sentence of the very paragraph quoted, but only in part, on page 775, “ . . . The Defendant asserts that the damages awarded by the jury were so excessive as to indicate that the verdicts were the result of passion, prejudice or mistake." (Emphasis supplied.) This sentence was overlooked by the majority when they remanded the case “on the issue of damages with instructions to consider appellant’s allegations regarding the effect, if any, of passion or prejudice on the sise of the verdict.” (Emphasis supplied.)
At no time until the majority opinion has anyone treating this case assumed that the fair trial defect of passion and prejudice went only to the amount of damages and conclusively did not infect the verdict on liability. The majority offers no explanation as there can be none aside from the error in viewing the new trial motion as addressing, on this point, damages only and not liability.
I would grant rehearing, reverse, and order a limited new trial, or at the very least, sua sponte, modify the majority opinion so as to permit consideration of passion and prejudice on the new trial motion as it related to liability. See Geffen v. Winer, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 286, 244 F.2d 375 (1957).