Jessop v. Hardman
| Decision Date | 30 January 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 20120224–CA.,20120224–CA. |
| Citation | 753 Utah Adv. Rep. 11,319 P.3d 790 |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Shawn JESSOP, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Sheldon HARDMAN, Defendant and Appellee. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Darwin L. Overson, Salt Lake City, Attorney for Appellant.
Scott W. Christensen and Jeremy M. Seeley, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellee.
Opinion
¶ 1 This appeal arises from an accident in which an eight-month-old child, Casey Jessop, pulled a hot iron down onto himself while in the home of his father's friend. The child's mother sued the friend, but the jury found that he was not at fault. The child's mother appeals, contending that the verdict was unsupported by the evidence and was coerced. We affirm.
¶ 2 Justin Jessop (Father) had been living in his friend Sheldon Hardman's home for several months. Father frequently brought his three-year-old son and his twin eight-month-old sons (one of whom was Casey) with him to the home. He did so on July 14, 2004. Around 3:00 p.m., Hardman was ironing shirts in the bedroom used by Hardman's daughter.1 He used an older iron that had neither an indicator light nor an automatic shutoff feature. When the phone rang, Hardman left the room and closed the door behind him but left the iron plugged in.
¶ 3 Father arrived with the children around 7:30 p.m. About an hour later, he placed the twins in the bedroom used by Hardman's daughter. He left them sleeping and unbuckled in their car seats on the floor near the ironing board. He then went downstairs to bathe his older son. Sometime thereafter, Hardman heard crying and then screaming coming from the bedroom. He went to the bedroom and saw that the hot iron had fallen onto Casey's arm. Casey suffered severe injuries.
¶ 4 Casey's mother, Shawn Jessop (Mother), sued Hardman individually and on Casey's behalf, alleging negligence. After a four-day trial, the jury returned a verdict of no fault on Hardman's part. Mother's counsel moved for a new trial, alleging insufficient evidence to support the verdict and “irregularit [ies] in the proceedings” as reported by one of the jurors. The trial court denied the motion, and Mother appeals.
¶ 5 Mother first contends that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion for new trial based on insufficiency of the evidence. “The trial court's denial of a motion for a new trial will be reversed only if ‘the evidence to support the verdict was completely lacking or was so slight and unconvincing as to make the verdict plainly unreasonable and unjust.’ ” Mann v. Fredrickson, 2006 UT App 475, ¶ 8, 153 P.3d 768 (quoting Nelson v. Trujillo, 657 P.2d 730, 732 (Utah 1982)).
¶ 6 Mother next contends that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion, because the jury was “coerced.” She argues that “several jurors felt time constrained to reach a verdict—any verdict.” “In reviewing the judge's ultimate decision to grant or deny a new trial, we will reverse only if there is no reasonable basis for the decision.” Crookston v. Fire Ins. Exch., 817 P.2d 789, 805 (Utah 1991).
¶ 7 Finally, Mother contends that the trial court improperly struck portions of a juror's declaration under rule 606(b) of the Utah Rules of Evidence. “We review a district court's decision to strike affidavits under an abuse of discretion standard.” Cabaness v. Thomas, 2010 UT 23, ¶ 50, 232 P.3d 486;see also Munafo v. Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 381 F.3d 99, 107–08 (2d Cir.2004) ().
¶ 8 Mother contends that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion for new trial based on insufficiency of the evidence. She argues that the trial court's denial of her motion for new trial was “an abuse of discretion because the verdict of no fault [on behalf of Hardman] was against the clear weight of the evidence, was patently unreasonable, and [was] manifestly [unjust].” She maintains that a “review of the evidence presented at trial in a light most favorable to the verdict shows that a new trial should have been granted.” 2
¶ 9 A new trial may be granted when the evidence is insufficient to justify the verdict. Utah R. Civ. P. 59(a)(6). However, a trial court “cannot grant a new trial if there is sufficient evidence to support a verdict for either party and the judge merely disagrees with the judgment of the jury.” Crookston, 817 P.2d at 799 n. 9. “The power of a trial judge to order a new trial is to be used in those rare cases when a jury verdict is manifestly against the weight of the evidence.” Braithwaite v. West Valley City, 921 P.2d 997, 1001 (Utah 1996) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 10 “A motion for a new trial invokes the sound discretion of the trial court, and appellate review of its ruling is quite limited.” ASC Utah, Inc. v. Wolf Mountain Resorts, LC, 2013 UT 24, ¶ 21, 309 P.3d 201 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Von Hake v. Thomas, 705 P.2d 766, 769 (Utah 1985) (citation omitted). “The trial court's denial of a motion for a new trial will be reversed only if ‘the evidence to support the verdict was completely lacking or was so slight and unconvincing as to make the verdict plainly unreasonable and unjust.’ ” Mann v. Fredrickson, 2006 UT App 475, ¶ 8, 153 P.3d 768 (quoting Nelson v. Trujillo, 657 P.2d 730, 732 (Utah 1982)).
¶ 11 Here, the record does not establish that the jury's verdict was “plainly unreasonable and unjust.” Hardman was interrupted while ironing in his daughter's bedroom. He left the room and closed the door. Some four hours later, Father arrived and put the twins in one of the two available bedrooms; Hardman did not know which. Father set the twins down next to the ironing board. The twins were asleep in their car seats and Father unbuckled them. Father acknowledged that an ordinarily observant person walking into the bedroom could have seen the iron, the ironing board, and the cord; that the iron was in a position where it could fall on Casey; that Father didn't notice it because he probably wasn't paying attention; and that the iron would have been dangerous even if it had not been hot. Finally, Father did not ask Hardman to watch the children—in fact he acknowledged that he himself was responsible for their care.
¶ 12 The trial court instructed the jury that “[i]f an unsafe condition on the property is so obvious that a person could reasonably be expected to observe it, then Sheldon Hardman does not have to warn others about the dangerous condition.” The trial court further instructed the jury that to succeed in her claim, Mother was required to prove that Hardman “knew or had reason to know that [Father] would not discover [that] the iron had been left on and unattended in [the daughter's bedroom] or realize its danger” and that Father “did not discover the iron had been left on and unattended in bedroom number one or did not realize its danger.”
¶ 13 Bearing in mind the limited scope of our review of a trial court's denial of a motion for new trial, and viewing the evidence in the light most supportive of the verdict, we cannot say that the evidence here was “completely lacking or was so slight and unconvincing as to make the verdict plainly unreasonable and unjust.” See Mann, 2006 UT App 475, ¶ 8, 153 P.3d 768 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 14 Mother next contends that the jury's verdict was “coerced because several jurors felt time constrained to reach a verdict—any verdict.” Specifically, Mother argues that the bailiff's refusal to allow two jurors to make phone calls to change evening arrangements had a coercive effect. Based on this premise, Mother filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court denied. As explained above, see supra ¶¶ 9–10, “[i]n reviewing the judge's ultimate decision to grant or deny a new trial,” this court “will reverse only if there is no reasonable basis for the decision.” Crookston v. Fire Ins. Exch., 817 P.2d 789, 805 (Utah 1991).
¶ 15 Mother infers coercion from the circumstances of the jury's deliberations; no Allen-type instruction was given.3 Throughout the trial, the court had told the jury that trial would “generally” run until 5:00 p.m., that on “Thursday [they'd] be done,” and that trial would be “done by 5” on that day. The trial court anticipated that argument would end by noon on that Thursday and that the case would be submitted to the jury early in the afternoon. However, the case was in fact not submitted to the jury until 4:16 p.m. on that day. Just before deliberations began, the bailiff asked the jurors to turn over their phones. Two jurors asked if they could make phone calls to let others know that the trial was running later than they expected. Specifically, one juror explained that she was scheduled to pick up her daughter from the babysitter at 5:30 p.m. and needed to make other arrangements. Another apparently needed to cancel plans for that evening. The bailiff denied both requests, and the jury began deliberations.
¶ 16 The court instructed the jury, “The bailiff cannot answer questions, but if you have questions, you may place them in writing and [the judge] will respond to your questions after discussing [them] with counsel.” And in fact the jury sent out two different questions to the judge, one at 5:29 p.m. and one at 5:59 p.m., to which he responded in writing. At approximately 6:20 p.m., the jury returned a...
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