City of Indianapolis v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 30 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. 30A04-9612-CV-521,30A04-9612-CV-521
• Parties: The CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al., Appellants-Defendants, v. Nancy Hobbs TAYLOR, Individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of Michael H. Taylor, Jr., Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 1047

707 N.E.2d 1047

The CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al., Appellants-Defendants, v. Nancy Hobbs TAYLOR, Individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of Michael H. Taylor, Jr., Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 30A04-9612-CV-521.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

March 30, 1999.

Christopher G. Scanlon, Scott D. Himsel, Baker & Daniels, Indianapolis, Attorneys for Appellants.

John O. Moss, Jr., James R. Recker, II, John O. Moss & Associates, Indianapolis, Attorneys for Appellees.

OPINION

GARRARD, Judge

Case Summary

Officers Charles Penniston and Edwin Aurs (collectively, "the Officers") and the City of Indianapolis ("the City") ¹ appeal a judgment granted in favor of Nancy Taylor ("Mother"), individually and as the administratrix for the Estate of Michael H. Taylor, Jr. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Issues

The City and the Officers present four, multiple-part issues which we restate as follows:

I. Whether the injection of the presumption against suicide into the trial improperly prejudiced the Defendants II. Whether reversible error occurred when the trial court admitted hearsay;

III. Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it denied the Defendants' motion for mistrial after Mother's counsel violated a motion in limine; and,

IV. Whether the award of damages was improper.

Facts and Procedural History

Michael H. Taylor, Jr. ("Taylor") was confined to the boys school in Terre Haute for approximately one year beginning in March of 1986. In August of 1987, shortly after his release from the boys school, Taylor was charged with car theft and detained at the Marion County Juvenile Center for two weeks. The court scheduled a sentencing hearing regarding the car theft charge for September 28, 1987.

On the afternoon of September 24, 1987, Taylor attempted to steal another car. Upon being discovered around 4:00 p.m. by the car's owner and his coworkers, Taylor fled. At approximately 4:24 p.m., Officer Aurs and another Indianapolis Police Department officer apprehended Taylor. Sixteen year old Taylor was wearing two pairs of socks, high-top tennis shoes, shorts, a tank top shirt, and a cap. Officer Penniston arrived to transport Taylor to the juvenile center. The officers searched Taylor and found a cigarette lighter, a screwdriver, and a key chain, but no firearm. The officers then handcuffed Taylor's hands behind his back, and placed him in Officer Penniston's police car.

At some point between the time he entered the police car and his arrival at the juvenile center, Taylor sustained a mortal gunshot wound to his right temple. Officer Penniston radioed for medical assistance and backup officers at 5:04 p.m. Various officers responded as did emergency medical technicians ("EMTs"). The EMTs performed CPR and other emergency procedures on Taylor until paramedics arrived and rushed Taylor to a hospital. Taylor was pronounced dead at the hospital on September 25, 1987.

Believing that Taylor's wound was not self-inflicted, Mother filed this action against the Defendants in Marion Superior Court on August 31, 1989. Specifically, Mother pursued claims against the Defendants under Indiana Code Section 34-1-1-2, Indiana's adult wrongful death statute ("Claim 1"), and under Indiana Code Section 34-1-1-8, Indiana's child wrongful death statute ("Claim 2"). Mother sought recovery against only the Officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, alleging unreasonable force in arresting Taylor ("Claim 3"), and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, alleging severance of the parental relationship between Taylor and Mother ("Claim 4").

Venue was changed to the Hancock Superior Court where a jury trial commenced on February 12, 1996. Mother prevailed on all four claims. On March 21, 1996, the trial court entered a judgment awarding $957,421.00 to the Estate and against the Defendants on Claim I, $257,120.00 to Mother and against the Defendants on Claim 2, $1,072,301.00 plus $500,00.00 punitives to the Estate and against the Officers on Claim 3, and $250,000.00 plus $500,000.00 punitives to Mother and against the Officers on Claim 4. The Defendants filed a motion to correct error, alleging that the award was excessive. The trial court granted the motion in part, reducing the $957,421.00 award for Claim 1 to $300,000.00 ($3,928.90 of which was for funeral expenses) pursuant to Indiana Code Section 34-4-16.5-4.

Discussion and Decision

I. Presumption Against Suicide

The Defendants argue that the trial judge and Mother's counsel erroneously informed the jury that the law presumed against suicide. They claim that the presumption does not apply where, as here, the jury had to choose between two forms of morally reprehensible conduct: suicide and murder. They assert that they were prejudiced by the injection of the presumption against suicide into the trial.

There is a presumption of law against suicide. Prudential Ins. Co. of America v. Dolan, 46 Ind.App. 40, 91 N.E. 970 (1910). That is, when the dead body of the assured is "found under such circumstances and with such injuries that the death may have resulted from negligence, accident, or suicide, the presumption is against suicide, as contrary to the general conduct of mankind--a gross moral turpitude not to be presumed in a sane man; and whether it was one or the other, if there is any evidence bearing upon the point, it is for the jury, as for instance, whether the taking of an overdose ... was intentional or by mistake." Equitable Life Ins. Co. of Iowa v. Hebert, 37 Ind.App. 373, 76 N.E. 1023, 1024 (1906) (citing 1 May on Insurance (4th Ed.) § 325). However, the presumption of law against suicide is a rebuttable one. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Shuman, 175 Ind.App. 186, 370 N.E.2d 941, 954 (1977). Moreover, the presumption against suicide is not evidence and cannot be treated as evidence by the jury in reaching a verdict, and an instruction that such presumption has the effect of affirmative evidence is erroneous. Prudential, 91 N.E. at 971.

In Modern Woodmen of America v. Craiger, 175 Ind. 30, 92 N.E. 113 (1910), the following instruction was challenged:

The court instructs you that, owing to the instinctive love of life, the presumption is against suicide, and the burden is therefore upon the party asserting death in such manner to establish the fact, and the evidence must be of such character as to exclude with reasonable certainty every other hypothesis than that of death by suicide.

Id. at 114. Finding the instruction manifestly unreasonable, our supreme court explained:

[I]n the opening clause, [the lower court] in effect declares that a presumption of law against suicide exists under all circumstances, and therefore the burden of proving self-destruction is cast upon the party relying on that fact, thus confusing matters of pleading and proof. The defense founded upon suicide was affirmative in character, and must be specially pleaded, and hence under the general rules of practice appellant assumed the burden of the issue, without reference to any presumption of law on the question.

Id. They further stated:

It is true that death by suicide is unnatural, and it is not inaccurate to say negatively that the law will not presume an unexplained death to have been suicidal, as it will not presume the existence of fraud, bad faith or dishonest conduct. In determining the charge of suicide, the jury may properly consider the facts and circumstances bearing upon that question given in evidence, in the light of their common knowledge and experience that mankind instinctively love life and generally shun death, although occasionally men, both sane and insane, take their own lives. The cause of death was directly in issue in this case, to be decided not by a presumption of law, but as an inference of fact by the jury in the same manner as other facts are determined in civil actions.

Id.

As should be evident from the above discussion, the proper application of the presumption against suicide often presents a perplexing task. From our review of the case law, we conclude that the presumption against suicide should not be applied universally. Rather, it should be applied only in cases where one must make a choice between suicide, which has traditionally been viewed in a negative light (like fraud, bad faith, or dishonest conduct), and less culpable conduct, such as an accident. Therefore, while the application of the presumption against suicide in the myriad of insurance cases is proper, the same cannot be said in cases where the choice is between two negative forms of conduct. In those cases, we are persuaded by the logic of People v. Miller, 357 N.Y. 54, 177 N.E. 306, 308 (Ct.App.N.Y.1931) that no presumption should apply.

In Miller, a murder case, a judge instructed a jury that they were to approach the consideration of the evidence with a presumption that the victim had committed suicide and had not come to her death at the hands of the defendant. Id. at 308. Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo had the following to say regarding the instruction It is a ruling in [the defendant's] favor. It has support in the decision of this court in People v. Creasy, 236 N.Y. 205, 140 N.E. 563. Upon reconsideration of the doctrine of that case, we are unanimously of the opinion that to the extent of its recognition of a presumption of suicide it should now be disapproved. There is indeed a presumption in the absence of inculpatory evidence that death was not caused by the criminal act of the defendant for this is merely a restatement in another form of the presumption of innocence. There is no presumption that it was caused in any particular way, whether by suicide, by the defendant himself through innocent misadventure, or by the act of some one else, undetected or unknown.

Id. at 308-09. Instead, traditional notions of burdens of proof should guide how the jury views the...