Opinion
C.A. No. 00C-09-206-FSS
Submitted: November 27, 2002
Decided: December 17, 2002
Upon Plaintiffs' Motion for a New Trial — DENIED
ORDER
This case involves alleged personal injuries caused by a car crash. Plaintiff asks for a new trial claiming that Defendant's verdict was against the great weight of the evidence. Plaintiff contends, in effect, under any reasonable review of the evidence, the jury had to find that Defendant caused the collision by crossing the center line.
Plaintiff points out that a police officer investigated the incident and concluded that the point of impact was on Plaintiff's side of the road, "approximately two feet over the center line." The officer found the parties' damaged cars on Plaintiff's side of the road, along with debris and fluids. The officer also testified that Defendant admitted that he struck Plaintiff's vehicle while Defendant was turning. Moreover, Plaintiff argues that Defendant had a reason to cross the center line in order to turn into a driveway, while Plaintiff had no reason to cross the center line.
Considering only the evidence presented by Plaintiff's motion, the verdict is inexplicable. Defendant, however, points out that the investigating officer's testimony was suspect in several ways. Thus, Defendant suggests that the jury probably discounted or disregarded the officer's conclusions. Furthermore, although Defendant also testified that he had no memory of the collision, he also testified that he never moved his car after stopping and while waiting to turn into the driveway. Moreover, Plaintiff testified that he did not see Defendant's vehicle in motion. That leaves the accident's cause clouded. It raises the question: If Defendant's car was not moving as everyone agrees was the case, why did the collision occur and how was it Defendant's fault?
Defendant also points out that although he was trying to make a left turn, which involves crossing the center line, Plaintiff testified that he was unclear about the accident's cause because his attention was on bicyclists to his right. Based on that testimony, Defendant argues that the jury concluded that "Plaintiff simply drifted to his left in order to give the individuals on the bicycles a wide berth and as a result struck Defendant's vehicle which was stopped in the opposite lane awaiting to make a left turn."
It is Hornbook law that Plaintiff must establish at trial that Defendant probably was negligent and that Defendant's negligence probably caused the accident. If the evidence is equally balanced, a jury must find that Plaintiff has not met his burden of proof. The court will accept Plaintiff's legal standard for reviewing a motion for a new trial based on the verdict's being against the great weight of the evidence. As Defendant reads the lead cases on such motions, McCloskey v. McKelvey and Storey v. Camper, the trial court must weigh the evidence to determine if the verdict is reasonable. That standard, however, does not give the trial court authority to decide a motion for a new trial based on the trial court's own view of the evidence. Implicit in the McCloskey v. McKelvey and Storey v. Camper standard is the trial court must weigh the evidence in light of the verdict. The court is not deciding what the verdict should have been, but merely whether the verdict was reasonable.
McCloskey v. McKelvey, 174 A.2d 691, 693 (Del.Supr. 1961).
Storey v. Camper, 401 A.2d 458 (Del.Supr. 1979).
Here, the jury had reason to believe that neither driver actually knew how the accident really occurred. While the circumstantial evidence favored Plaintiff, much of that evidence came from a potentially unreliable source, the investigating police officer. In weighing the evidence, the court will not usurp the jury's most important function by determining the credibility of the witnesses, as the court sees fit. Regardless of how the court might have viewed the investigating officer's opinions, enough was revealed through cross-examination to provide the jury with a reasonable basis for disbelieving or discounting those opinions.
In summary, the jury had to decide whether Plaintiff proved that Defendant crossed the center line by two feet. To be sure, Plaintiff presented ample evidence from which the jury could have decided the question in Plaintiff's favor. Nevertheless, the jury apparently decided that as between Defendant's crossing the center line in the process of turning into a driveway or Plaintiff's drifting across the center line to avoid bicyclists, the accident's cause was not established. Even if the court might have decided the question differently, the court cannot say that the verdict was so contrary to the evidence that it was unreasonable.
In closing, if the decision had been left to the court, most likely the verdict would have involved comparative negligence. While making his turn, Defendant probably stopped just across the center line. Distracted by the bicyclists, Plaintiff probably failed to avoid the minor obstruction posed by Defendant. So, they share the blame. Nevertheless, this was not a bench trial. Plaintiff insisted on presenting his case to a jury. The jury was unpersuaded by Plaintiff's evidence and the court cannot conclude that the jury's take on the evidence was unreasonable.
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff's November 14, 2002 Motion for a New Trial is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.