Chrabaszcz v. Johnston School Committee

• Citation: 474 F.Supp.2d 298
• Decision Date: 13 February 2007
• Docket Number: No. C.A. 03-133S.,C.A. 03-133S.
• Parties: Stephen F. CHRABASZCZ, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. JOHNSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

474 F.Supp.2d 298

Stephen F. CHRABASZCZ, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. JOHNSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants.

No. C.A. 03-133S.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

February 13, 2007.

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Jeffrey D. Sowa, Christopher D. DiSano, LaPlante Sowa Goldman, Providence, for Plaintiffs.

Marc DeSisto, DeSisto Law, Providence, for Defendants.

DECISION AND ORDER

SMITH, District Judge.

On May 22, 2006, a jury returned a verdict for plaintiffs on claims for breach of contract, defamation and loss of consortium against defendants, the Town of Johnston, its then school committee and its then Superintendent Dr. Michael Jolin.¹ This matter is now before the Court on four post-trial motions: (1) defendants' Renewed Motion for Judgment after Trial, Motion for a New Trial, or in the alternative, for a Remittitur ("Renewed Motion"); (2) plaintiffs' Motion seeking Modification/Clarification of Judgment; (3) plaintiffs' Motion seeking an Award of Attorneys' Fees; and (4) defendants' Motion for Attorney's Fees. Argument was heard on July 12, 2006. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant plaintiffs' motion for clarification of the judgment in part (to add prejudgment interest) but will deny its motion for additional attorney's fees; further, the court will grant defendant Dr. Jolin's motion on the breach of contract verdict but deny the rest of defendants' motions.

I. Defendants' Renewed Motion for Judgment after Trial and Motion for a New Trial, or in the Alternative, for a Remittitur.

At the close of plaintiffs' case at trial, and then again after the close of all evidence, defendants moved for a judgment as a matter of law (JMOL), under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a), on the claims for breach of contract, defamation, and loss of consortium. This court denied that motion and, after the jury found in favor of plaintiffs, defendants renewed their motion for JMOL, pursuant to Rule 50(b). Additionally, defendants sought, in the alternative, a new trial under Rule 59(a) or remittitur, see generally 11 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2815 at p. 169 (2d ed.1995) [hereinafter "Federal Practice and Procedure"].

Plaintiffs argue that defendants have waived most of the claims contained in their Rule 50(b) motion because they failed to specifically raise them in their Rule 50(a) motion. Barring success on this threshold argument, plaintiffs also contend that the evidence is sufficient to support a jury finding in their favor under any of the defendants' alternative theories for relief.² The court addresses these arguments in turn.

A. Waiver

Plaintiffs contend that although defendants in their Rule 50(a) motion argued that the evidence was insufficient with respect to the breach of contract, defamation, and loss of consortium claims, they did so on different grounds than were advanced in their Rule 50(b) motion. Specifically, plaintiffs allege that defendants' Rule 50(a) motion failed to assert that: (1) Dr. Jolin was not a signatory to the contract and therefore could not be found to have breached the contract; (2) the indemnification provision in the contract was not intended to include plaintiffs' claims, and therefore could not have been breached; (3) the plaintiff failed to prove consequential damages; (4) Dr. Jolin holds an absolute privilege with respect to any defamatory remarks he made toward Chrabaszcz; and (5) there was no evidence to support a finding of a causal link between Dr. Jolin's statements and monetary damages. Because these arguments now appear in defendants' Rule 50(b) motion, plaintiffs argue that insofar as they constitute distinct and previously unasserted grounds for dismissal and were not included in the earlier motion, as a matter of law they must be considered waived.

In order to avoid waiver of issues or claims raised in a Rule 50(b) motion, a moving party must first have made a proper and sufficient motion for JMOL pursuant to Rule 50(a). See Rankin v. Evans, 133 F.3d 1425, 1431 (11th Cir.1998); Perdoni Bros., Inc. v. Concrete Sys., Inc., 35 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1994). A motion made pursuant to Rule 50(a) "shall specify ... the law and the facts on which the moving party is entitled to judgment." Fed. R.Civ.P. 50(a)(2). In other words, a motion for JMOL must state the specific grounds upon which the moving party believes the evidence is insufficient to support a jury's finding; it cannot consist merely of "[s]weeping invocations of conclusory theories or abstract principles." Perdoni Bros., 35 F.3d at 3; see Williams v. Runyon, 130 F.3d 568, 572 (3d Cir.1997) (noting that the "blanket statement that `there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for the Plaintiff or any of the issues that counsel have set forth in this case' is obviously insufficient."); see also Zimmerman v. Direct Federal Credit Union, 262 F.3d 70, 75 (1st Cir.2001); Anderson v. United Tel. Co. of Kansas, 933 F.2d 1500, 1504 (10th Cir.1991). A renewed motion for JMOL is thus "nothing more than a renewal of the earlier motion made at the close of the presentation of the evidence, it cannot assert a ground that was not included in the earlier motion." 9A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller Federal Practice and Procedure § 2537 at p. 344-45. Accordingly, it is well-settled that "[t]he movant cannot use [Rule 50(b) ] as a vehicle to introduce a legal theory not distinctly articulated in its close-of-evidence motion for a directed verdict." Correa v. Hosp. San Francisco, 69 F.3d 1184, 1196 (1st Cir. 1995).

Nevertheless, despite Rule 50(a)'s demand that a moving party assert the "specific grounds" for its directed verdict motion, see Anderson, 933 F.2d at 1504, there is no clearly articulated standard for what constitutes "specific grounds." The reluctance to solidify such a standard derives in part from a recognition that the Rule 50(b) waiver is "harsh in any circumstance," and, if applied unyieldingly, could frustrate "the purpose of the rules to secure a just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of a case." Id. at 1503. For purposes of determining whether claims in a Rule 50(b) motion have been waived, i.e., whether the "specific grounds" for those claims were not presented in the Rule 50(a) motion, courts thus often look to "whether the purposes the rule embodies have been served." Id. at 1504. In this regard, "[a] party is obliged to make a motion for [JMOL] at the close of the evidence as a prerequisite to a [Rule 50(b)] motion ... to ensure that neither the court nor the opposing party is lulled into complacency concerning the sufficiency of the evidence." Rankin, 133 F.3d at 1432 (internal quotations and citations omitted); see also Scottish Heritable Trust v. Peat Marwick Main & Co., 81 F.3d 606, 610 (5th Cir.1996) ("the two basic purposes of [Rule 50(b) ] are to enable the trial court to re-examine the question of evidentiary insufficiency as a matter of law if the jury returns a verdict contrary to the movant, and to alert the opposing party to the insufficiency before the case is submitted to the jury") (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); Perdoni, 35 F.3d at 3 ("The motion must ... be made with sufficient specificity to allow the district court to understand precisely why the evidence is insufficient.") (quoting Wells Real Etate, Inc. v. Greater Lowell Bd. of Realtors, 850 F.2d 803, 810 (1st Cir.1988)). Consequently, the strictness with which Rule 50 is applied depends on whether the opposing party and the court have been effectively put "on notice" concerning the sufficiency of the evidence for proving specific claims.

For instance, a Rule 50(a) motion raising the issue of sufficiency of evidence for liability, damages, and future lost profits is sufficient to allow a Rule 50(b) motion on the issue of goodwill and reputation because, although the latter issues "may be legally distinct, the two are also closely related, for insofar as lost goodwill and reputation are compensable they are conceivable as a lost stream of future income." See Nat'l Indus., Inc. v. Sharon Steel Corp., 781 F.2d 1545, 1549 (11th Cir.1986). Similarly, a rule 50(a) motion that asserts that a duty of care claim could not be established by a "mere breach of contract" is sufficient to preserve a Rule 50(b) motion that seeks to assert an alternative basis for the insufficiency of evidence to establish a duty of care, namely that "there can be no tort liability ... where the plaintiff is seeking recovery solely for economic losses." Kusens v. Pascal Co., Inc., 448 F.3d 349, 362 (6th Cir.2006) (discussing Rockport Pharmacy, Inc. v. Digital Simplistics, Inc., 53 F.3d 195, 197 (8th Cir.1995)). The issue was found not waived because the two grounds, although somewhat distinct were considered "inextricably intertwined," because "in any negligence action, the plaintiff must first establish that a duty exists by the defendant to protect the plaintiff from the injury suffered .... [Thus,] in determining whether a breach of contract may give rise to tort liability, the nature of the alleged injury [i.e., whether the claim is based solely on economic losses] is an essential factor that must be considered." Rockport Pharmacy, 53 F.3d at 198 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Finally, even a generalized pre-verdict motion made orally may support a more specific Rule 50(b) motion that attacks a specific element of the "claim. For example, in Kusens, the defendant offered only a preverdict "general argument made orally that Plaintiff failed to argue his public policy claim, at all." 448 F.3d at 362. After the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs, "[t]he post-verdict motion, which was made in writing and was fully briefed, presented the failure...