Dodson v. Henderson Properties, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 September 1985
• Docket Number: No. 60876,60876
• Citation: 708 P.2d 1064,1985 OK 71
• Parties: George V. DODSON, Appellant, v. HENDERSON PROPERTIES, INC., Travis Henderson, C.A. Henderson, and Southwest Property Management Corp., Individually and d/b/a/ Brookwood Joint Venture, a partnership, Appellees.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 1064

708 P.2d 1064

1985 OK 71

George V. DODSON, Appellant, v. HENDERSON PROPERTIES, INC., Travis Henderson, C.A Henderson, and Southwest Property Management Corp., Individually and d/b/a/ Brookwood Joint Venture, a partnership, Appellees.

No. 60876.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Sept. 17, 1985.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 5, 1985.

Thomas A. Wallace, Oklahoma City, for appellant,

Micky Walsh, Oklahoma City, for appellees.

ALMA WILSON, Justice.

The plaintiff, George Dodson, sustained injuries rendering him quadripartite when he executed a "jack-knife" dive into 36 inches of water while a guest at an apartment complex swimming pool. Asserting negligence on the part of the corporate owners and operators of the apartment complex for failure to close the pool while it was under construction for repairs, and allegedly maintaining the deceptive appearance that the shallow end was the deep end of the pool, George Dodson brought this suit seeking damages occasioned from his paralyzing injuries.

The case was tried to a twelve member jury. After a lengthy trial over a period of five days, the jury returned a verdict. The jury verdict was unanimous. The jury found Dodson's total damages to be $3,000,000. The jury further found the defendants 75% negligent and Dodson 25% negligent, resulting in a final verdict in favor of Dodson in the net amount of $2,250,000.

The defendants filed simultaneous post-trial motions, including Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict, Motion for Remittitur and Motion for New Trial. On defendants' urgings that the jury's assessment of damages was excessive, the trial court ordered that unless Dodson agreed to a remittitur amounting to $1,250,000, within 15 days, the defendants' Motion for New Trial would be sustained. Dodson refused to remit the jury verdict.

This appeal is prosecuted from the trial court's subsequent order setting aside the verdict of the jury as excessive and granting defendants a new trial by reason of Dodson's refusal to file a certificate agreeing to a remittitur of the jury verdict. Dodson contends that, based upon the evidence, the damages awarded by the jury are not excessive; and that the jury was activated not by passion and prejudice, but by proof. Defendants' urge that the trial judge was within his judicial discretion in granting them a new trial.

The function of a motion for new trial is to open judicial inquiry into errors occurring during the conduct of trial proceedings; its office is to invoke the power of the trial court to correct and cure its own errors. Conyers v. Conyers, 386 P.2d 633 (Okl.1964). However, a trial court's exercise of discretion to grant a new trial must be a sound legal discretion in accordance with recognized principles of law, rather than an arbitrary discretion exercised at will. Hansen v. Cunningham, 285 P.2d 432 (Okl.1955). Moreover, it is not within a court's province to substitute its own judgment for that of the jury and a trial court's order sustaining a motion for new trial will be reversed where it is based, to the exclusion of all others, on a wrong, incorrect or insufficient reason or ground and there appears to be no tangible, substantial, or reasonably certain basis for concluding that if the cause were retried, the result would be different. Aldridge v. Patterson, 276 P.2d 202 (Okl.1954). Ostensibly, every jury trial involving adversarial issues could become the object of attack by opposing litigants disgruntled by an adverse verdict and thus inferring jury bias against them. A trial court, however, may not indulge in such speculation as grounds for setting aside jury verdicts and the judgments based thereon. Title 12 O.S.1981 § 651 provides the following pertinent grounds for granting a new trial:

A new trial is a reexamination in the same court, of an issue of fact, or of law, either or both, after a verdict by a jury, the approval of the report of a referee, or a decision by the court. The former verdict, report or decision shall be vacated, and a new trial granted, on the application of the party aggrieved, for any of the following causes, affecting materially the substantial rights of such party:

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Second. Misconduct of the jury or prevailing party.

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Fourth. Excessive or inadequate damages, appearing to have been given under the influence of passion or prejudice.

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In determining whether the jury verdict in this case can be said to be the result of prejudicial misconduct or so excessive as to be contrary to the law and the evidence, we must look to the entire record and consider all the facts and circumstances shown therein. See, Hansen v. C.M. Cunningham, 285 P.2d 432 (Okl.1955).

The law is well established in this jurisdiction that the issue of damages in a personal injury action is left to the jury's judgment after hearing all the evidence. The judgment of the jury is subject to correction by a court only if the jury were activated by prejudice or guilty of abuse and passionate exercise. Walker v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, 646 P.2d 593 (Okl.1982). Before a jury verdict can be set aside as excessive, it must strike mankind, at first blush, as being beyond all measure unreasonable and show the jury to have been activated by passion, partiality, prejudice or corruption. Austin Bridge Company v. Christian, 446 P.2d 46 (Okl.1968). From a thorough review of the full record, including the pleadings, the trial and appellate briefs, the written transcript and audio/visual recordings and exhibits, we believe that passion, partiality, prejudice or corruption cannot be attributed to the jury in this case without engaging in gross speculation. If the damages were unsupported by the evidence, then there might be some basis for concluding that in some manner or another, the jury was prejudiced against the defendants, but this is not the case. Here, the court had no standard upon which to base its finding of excess and we find nothing to impugn the presumption that the jury discharged its function impartially and conscientiously upon the evidence, the facts and the law.

The five-day trial of the case began on June 14, 1983. The trial court personally conducted a careful and thorough voir dire of the prospective jurors, followed by a detailed examination by counsel for each of the parties and detailed explanations by the trial court. Final composition of the twelve-member jury consisted of (1) a...