Opinion
HHDCV176077527S
07-10-2019
Leaverne BROWN v. Rebecca STEARNS et al.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
OPINION
MATTHEW DALLAS GORDON, J.
This is a negligence action in which the defendants, EAN Holdings, LLC and Rebecca Stearns, move to set aside a $339,752.82 jury verdict rendered against them and in favor of the plaintiff, Leaverne Brown, based on 1) the court’s refusal to grant the defendants’ motion to amend their answer to include a special defense of comparative negligence, which motion was not filed until after the close of evidence; and 2) the court’s decision to recharge the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages. For the reasons set forth in this decision, the defendants’ motion is denied.
Facts and Procedural History
The plaintiff alleges that she sustained personal injuries on September 13, 2015, when her motor vehicle was struck in a parking lot at 62 Buckland Street in Manchester, Connecticut, by a vehicle owned by the defendant EAN Holdings, LLC and operated by the defendant Rebecca Stearns. The plaintiff’s complaint alleges that Stearns was negligent in several respects, including failing to keep a reasonable and proper lookout. The defendants denied that Stearns was negligent, and the case was tried to a jury over three days beginning on March 19, 2019. Following the close of evidence, but before the jury began deliberating, the defendants moved to amend their answer to include a special defense alleging contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff. The court denied the defendants’ motion as untimely.
The jury subsequently returned a plaintiff’s verdict of $339,752.82 that included $279,752.82 in economic damages and $60,000 in noneconomic damages. The jury also completed interrogatories prepared by the parties indicating that the plaintiff was entitled to receive $38,456.82 as reimbursement for her medical expenses, plus an additional $1,125, presumably for a chair the plaintiff testified she purchased to ease the pain she was experiencing, for a total reimbursement of $39,581.82. When the court realized that the jury’s verdict included an economic damage award that far exceeded the amount of economic damages claimed by the plaintiff, the court immediately brought the discrepancy to the attention of counsel, and, because the jury returned its verdict at approximately 5:00 PM, the court excused the jurors for the day and instructed them to return the following morning.
The court met with counsel the next morning, and following a lengthy discussion, recharged the jury regarding both economic and noneconomic damages. The jury then deliberated further and ultimately returned a verdict awarding the plaintiff $39,752.82 in economic damages and $300,000 in noneconomic damages, for a total award of $339,752.82, the exact same amount as the original verdict.
The defendants now move the court to set the jury’s verdict aside pursuant to General Statutes § 52-228b and Practice Book § 16-35 claiming that the court 1) improperly denied the defendants’ request to amend their answer to add a special defense of comparative negligence; and 2) improperly recharged the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages, which, according to the defendants, resulted in a verdict that was manifestly unjust and against the evidence because the jury misunderstood and misapplied the law. In opposing the defendants’ motion, the plaintiff asserts that she would have been severely prejudiced had the court allowed the amendment after the plaintiff had rested her case. The plaintiff further contends that the court did not err in recharging the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages given the manifest confusion evidenced by the jury’s original verdict, which included an economic damage award that greatly exceeded the amount of economic damages claimed by the plaintiff.
General Statutes § 52-228b provides: "No verdict in any civil action involving a claim for money damages may be set aside except on written motion by a party to the action, stating the reasons relied upon in its support, filed and heard after notice to the adverse party according to the rules of the court. No such verdict may be set aside solely on the ground that the damages are excessive unless the prevailing party has been given an opportunity to have the amount of the judgment decreased by so much thereof as the court deems excessive. No such verdict may be set aside solely on the ground that the damages are inadequate until the parties have first been given an opportunity to accept an addition to the verdict of such amount as the court deems reasonable."
Practice Book § 16-35 provides: "Motions in arrest of judgment, whether for extrinsic causes or causes apparent on the record, motions to set aside a verdict, motions for remittitur, motions for additur, motions for new trials ... must be filed with the clerk within ten days after the day the verdict is accepted ... Such motions shall state the specific grounds upon which counsel relies."
Applicable Legal Standard
The trial court possesses inherent discretion, under limited circumstances, to set aside a jury verdict. See Jackson v. Water Pollution Control Authority, 278 Conn. 692, 702, 900 A.2d 498 (2006). "A trial court may set aside a verdict on a finding that the verdict is manifestly unjust because, given the evidence presented, the jury mistakenly applied a legal principle or because there is no evidence to which the legal principles of the case could be applied ... A verdict should not be set aside, however, where it is apparent that there was some evidence on which the jury might reasonably have reached its conclusion ... This limitation on a trial court’s discretion results from the constitutional right of litigants to have issues of fact determined by a jury." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Deas v. Diaz, 121 Conn.App. 826, 841, 998 A.2d 200, cert. denied, 298 Conn. 905, 3 A.3d 69 (2010). "[A trial court may] set aside a verdict where it finds it has made, in its instructions, rulings on evidence, or otherwise in the course of the trial, a palpable error which was harmful to the proper disposition of the case and probably brought about a different result in the verdict." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Schoonmaker v. Lawrence Brunoli, Inc., 265 Conn. 210, 276, 828 A.2d 64 (2003).
Analysis
I. The Propriety of the Court’s Denial of the Defendants’ Request for Leave to Amend Their Answer Following the Close of Evidence
Both parties rely on Dow & Condon, Inc. v. Brookfield Development Corp., 266 Conn. 572, 833 A.2d 908 (2003), to support their respective views regarding the propriety of the court’s denial of the defendants’ motion to amend their answer to include a special defense of comparative negligence after the close of evidence.
In Dow, the plaintiff sought to recover a real estate broker’s commission in connection with a lease that it negotiated on behalf of the defendant. Id., 573-74. After a trial to the court, the court entered judgment in favor of the defendant on the ground that the plaintiff was not entitled to the commission because it had violated General Statutes § 20-328-8a(e) and § 20-325a(a) of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies by agreeing to share its commission with a real estate broker not licensed in the state. Id., 574. The plaintiff appealed, claiming that it was prejudiced by the trial court’s granting of the defendant’s request to amend its pleadings on the day that trial was scheduled to begin by including a special defense based on the plaintiff’s alleged violation of the regulations. Id., 584. In affirming the trial court’s decision, the Dow court noted that "[w]hile our courts have been liberal in permitting amendments ... this liberality has limitations. Amendments should be made seasonably. Factors to be considered in passing on a motion to amend are the length of the delay, fairness to the opposing parties and the negligence, if any, of the party offering the amendment ... The motion to amend is addressed to the trial court’s discretion which may be exercised to restrain the amendment of pleadings so far as necessary to prevent unreasonable delay of the trial ... Whether to allow an amendment is a matter left to the sound discretion of the trial court. This court will not disturb a trial court’s ruling on a proposed amendment unless there has been a clear abuse of that discretion ... It is the [plaintiff’s] burden in this case to demonstrate that the trial court clearly abused its discretion." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 583-84.
The Dow court found it significant that the plaintiff had not sought a continuance to respond to the defendant’s newly raised defense, and that "the new affirmative defense did not inject any new factual issues into the case, but instead raised a purely legal issue." Id., 584. The Dow court also noted that the plaintiff had an opportunity to address the issue raised by the defendant in its post-trial brief to the court, and that "the trial court would have been obligated to consider the effect of the regulation on the enforceability of the co-brokerage agreement even if it had not been raised as a special defense." Id. Although indicating that "[w]e do not condone the practice of waiting until the day of trial to raise an important legal issue for the first time," the Dow court concluded that given the particular facts of the case before it, the trial court acted well within its discretion in deciding to grant the defendant’s request to amend its answer. Id., 585.
In the court’s view, the present case is markedly different from Dow because here the defendants did not seek leave to amend their answer until after the plaintiff had rested her case. In fact, it was not until all of the evidence had been presented and both sides had rested that the defendants first raised the issue of the plaintiff’s comparative negligence. It is the court’s view that it would have been extremely unfair and prejudicial to the plaintiff to permit the defendants to interject the issue of the plaintiff’s alleged comparative negligence at such a late stage of the proceedings, especially considering that it was no longer possible at that time for the plaintiff to rebut the defendants’ claim. The court’s conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the plaintiff, through her counsel, indicated that she would have prepared and tried her case differently if she had any idea that the defendants were going to allege that she was somehow contributorily negligent. For example, the plaintiff argued that had she known the defendants were going to claim that she was somehow responsible for the accident, she would have called the three passengers in the defendants’ vehicle as witnesses to testify regarding the facts and circumstances surrounding the accident.
The court does not find the cases relied on by the defendants apposite given that the defendants waited until after the close of evidence to seek leave to amend their answer. If the defendants had attempted to amend their answer at some point before the trial began, or even during the trial, perhaps it would have been possible for the court to have fashioned an arrangement that would have given the plaintiff an opportunity to prepare a defense to the defendants’ claim of comparative fault. For example, the court could have delayed the trial to give the plaintiff an opportunity to subpoena the passengers who were in the defendants’ vehicle, or to prepare a rebuttal to the defendants’ claim that the plaintiff herself was negligent.
The court also does not agree with the defendants’ suggestion that the proposed amendment simply added a legal issue for the jury to consider. Instead, the insertion of the special defense would have added a new dimension to the facts to be determined by the jury. Moreover, unlike Dow, where the case was tried to the court, and the court was bound to consider the regulations identified by the defendant regardless of the proposed special defense, the jury in this case had no reason or obligation to consider the plaintiff’s alleged comparative negligence unless the court allowed the defendants to introduce that issue by way of their proposed and belatedly filed special defense.
The defendants assert that there was no reason for them to raise the issue of the plaintiff’s comparative negligence until after the plaintiff rested because they had no way of knowing what the plaintiff would say at trial. The court does not accept this premise because the defendants admitted during oral argument that they knew before the trial began that the plaintiff’s deposition testimony that Stearns was required to stop for a stop sign immediately before the accident occurred was incorrect because the stop sign in question was not installed until after the accident happened. Knowing that the plaintiff’s version of the facts was incorrect, the defendants could have raised the issue of the plaintiff’s comparative negligence much earlier, in which case this entire situation could and would have been avoided.
In their brief, the defendants also acknowledge that their decision to forgo raising the plaintiff’s comparative negligence until after the plaintiff rested her case was a trial strategy. "Rather than assume the burden of proving that the plaintiff was negligent, the defendants chose to deny liability based on the plaintiff’s account that she was aware of the defendants’ emerging vehicle but continued driving forward under the false assumption of a stop sign." Def. Mot. No. 141, 8. Although the court will not second guess the defendants’ litigation strategies, the court remains convinced that it would have been fundamentally unfair and extremely prejudicial to the plaintiff to allow the defendants to interject the issue of the plaintiff’s alleged comparative negligence after the plaintiff rested and evidence had concluded. This is especially true given that the defendants could have raised this special defense at any time before the close of evidence, and yet chose, for whatever reasons, not to do so.
II. The Propriety of the Court’s Decision to Recharge the Jury on Both Economic and Noneconomic Damages
The defendants contend that the court’s decision to recharge the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages resulted in an unjust verdict because the jury misunderstood and misapplied the law. The court believed then, and remains convinced now, that it was appropriate to recharge the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages because the jury’s initial award of $279,752.82 in economic damages was approximately $240,000 more than the $39,581.82 claimed by the plaintiff, which indicated to the court that the jurors were confused and had likely conflated these two different categories of damages. The fact that the jury’s ultimate verdict of $339,752.82 was the exact same amount as its original verdict further bolsters the court’s view that the jurors knew the result they wanted to reach, but failed to fully understand and appreciate the distinction between economic and noneconomic damages. Nothing submitted by the defendants has changed the court’s view of how these events unfolded, and the court is not persuaded that its decision to recharge the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages constituted error warranting a setting aside of the jury’s verdict.
The Jury’s Verdict Was Not Manifestly Unjust or Against the Evidence
The court concludes that the defendants have not sustained their burden of proving that the jurors misunderstood or misapplied the law provided to them by the court. The court also concludes that the amount of the verdict is supported by the evidence and should not be set aside.
The plaintiff presented credible evidence that she incurred $38,456.82 in medical expenses, plus other expenses totaling between $1,000 and $2,000. The jury’s economic damage award of $39,752.82 is therefore supported by the evidence. The jury’s award of $300,000 in non-economic damages is also supported by the evidence. The plaintiff presented credible evidence that she continues to experience problems with her vision, her neck, and her back, all of which interfere with her ability to engage in and enjoy life’s activities, including sharing experiences with her family. The court assumes that the jury awarded what it believed to be fair, just and reasonable damages to compensate the plaintiff for her pain and suffering, and the court will not second guess the jury’s conclusion. "[I]f there is a reasonable basis in the evidence for the jury’s verdict, unless there is a mistake in law or some other valid basis for upsetting the result other than a difference of opinion regarding the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence, the trial court should let the jury work their will." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Withers v. Hatch, 252 Conn. 174, 189, 745 A.2d 789, 797 (2000).
Conclusion
Having carefully considered the defendants’ motion to set aside the jury’s verdict, and the plaintiff’s objection, as well as the supporting memoranda of law, and having entertained oral argument at which counsel for both parties appeared and had a full opportunity to present their respective arguments, the court concludes that its original decision denying the defendants’ request for leave to amend their answer to include a special defense alleging the plaintiff’s comparative negligence was appropriate. The court also concludes, based on the inherent inconsistencies in the jury’s original verdict, that it was appropriate for the court to recharge the jury on both economic and noneconomic damages. Lastly, the court concludes that the jury’s verdict was supported by the evidence, and was not excessive, or manifestly unjust.
For all of the forgoing reasons, the defendants’ motion to set the verdict aside is denied.