Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Amodt

• Decision Date: 04 January 1966
• Citation: 29 Wis.2d 441,139 N.W.2d 6
• Parties: , 18 A.L.R.3d 1123 FORD MOTOR CREDIT CO., Appellant, v. Earl AMODT, Respondent.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 6

139 N.W.2d 6

29 Wis.2d 441, 18 A.L.R.3d 1123

FORD MOTOR CREDIT CO., Appellant, v. Earl AMODT, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Jan. 4, 1966.

John Frampton, Chippewa Falls, for appellant.

Frank E. Huettner, Cadott, for respondent.

GORDON, Justice.

For all our reverence for the jury system, we must not be blind to the fact that a jury it but 12 human beings possessed of all the foibles and flaws of mortal men. Shakespeare touched on this in Measure for Measure (Act 2, Scene 1):

'The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try.'

Abraham Lincoln in a letter dated June 12, 1863, to Erastus Corning wrote:

'A jury too frequently has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.'

Wisconsin has heretofore preserved a major exception to the general rule which bars jurors from invalidating their own verdict. This exception has permitted jurors to show that their verdict was mistakenly recorded.

The principal case which established the exception in Wisconsin is Wolfgram v. Schoepke (1904), 123 Wis. 19, 26, 100 N.W. 1054, where the court stated that jurors could impeach their own verdict by

'* * * showing that the words used in conveying it to the court, or enrolling it on the records, by mistake of the person uttering or writing them, fail to express the conclusion reached by all the jurymen.'

This exception was acknowledged in State v. Biller (1952), 262 Wis. 472, 476, 55 N.W.2d 414, and also in the recent case of Kink v. Combs (1965), 28 Wis.2d 65, 135 N.W.2d 789. In the latter case, an attempt was made to attack a verdict by presenting an affidavit of a juror to the effect that he had failed to resist because of 'sheer fatigue.' The court stated, at page 78, at page 796 of 135 N.W.2d:

'This is an attempt of a juror to impeach his own verdict, and is not countenanced by this court. Only in limited cases, e. g., if a verdict is reported erroneously by clerical error, will jurors be heard to complain that the verdict is in error. Brophy v. Milwaukee Electric Railway & Transport Co. (1947), 251 Wis. 558, 30 N.W.2d 76.

'Olson v. Williams (1955), 270 Wis. 57, 70 N.W.2d 10, and a series of Wisconsin cases that precedes it point out the sound reasons of public policy behind this rule. Suffice it to say that if a showing that a juror was fatigued when he arrived at a verdict would result in setting it aside, the finality that we now confidently expect from a jury verdict would be at an end, and the jurors themselves would be harassed endlessly by the loser in his efforts to set aside their decision.'

As suggested above, there is a rational and compelling public policy which bars jurors from debasing their own verdict. This rule forecloses jurors from impugning their findings by asserting their own misconduct. Two recent cases reaffirming this long-established general rule are Ken-Crete Products Co. v. State Highway Comm. (1964), 24 Wis.2d 355, 363, 129 N.W.2d 130, and Field v. Vinograd (1960), 10 Wis.2d 500, 511, 103 N.W.2d 671.

The policy basis for the rule was asserted persuasively in Brophy v. Milwaukee Electric Railway & Transport Co. (1947), 251 Wis. 558, 566, 30 N.W.2d 76:

'There is sound public policy behind this general rule prohibiting impeachment of their verdict by the jury. The formality and dignity of the court proceedings are intended to provide as appropriate a surrounding as possible for the achievement of justice. The jury is kept apart from influences which might prejudice its decision. If jurors, after being discharged and after mingling with their friends who may have expressed approval or disapproval of the jury's verdict, are to be allowed to impeach that verdict, the unbiased evaluation of the evidence which the solemn court proceedings are intended to facilitate, will have ceased to control decisions. In talking after the trial to those who did not like the verdict, a juror might be inclined to express a wish that it had gone the other way. He may honestly think that if he had it to do over again he would vote differently. He may admit that the would have voted differently if he had known what the legal effect of the verdict would be. It is likely that there should be such reactions in some cases. But such subsequent reactions are not to be allowed to impeach the verdict. If they were allowed, the verdict would cease to be a decisive thing, putting an end to litigation; the jurors would become subjects of posttrial chicanery, improper persuasion and possibly bribery. In any event, objective discovery of the truth would be hampered, not promoted.'

An equally vigorous statement of the policy underlying this salutary rule is contained in Koss v. A. Geo. Schulz Co. (1928), 195 Wis. 243, 251, 218 N.W. 175:

"Let it once be established that verdicts solemnly made, and publicly returned into court, can be publicly attacked and set aside on the testimony of those who took part in their publication, and all verdicts could be, and many would be, followed by an inquiry in the hope of discovering something which might invalidate their finding. Jurors would be harassed and beset by the defeated party, in an effort to secure from them evidence of facts which might establish misconduct sufficient to set aside the verdict. If evidence thus secured could be used, the result would be to make what was intended to be a private deliberation, the constant subject of public investigation, to the destruction of frankness and freedom of discussion and conference.'

Whenever a court rejects a past precedent, there will be those who will decry the change. The...