Golnick v. Callender
| Decision Date | 20 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. S–14–032,S–14–032 |
| Citation | 860 N.W.2d 180 |
| Parties | Jan J. Golnick, appellant, v. Jack W. Callender, appellee. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
Matthew A. Lathrop, of Law Office of Matthew A. Lathrop, P.C., L.L.O., for appellant.
Joseph E. Jones and Alexander D. Boyd, of Fraser Stryker, P.C., L.L.O., Omaha, for appellee.
James E. Harris, of Harris Kuhn Law Firm, L.L.P., Omaha, for amicus curiae Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys.
Heavican, C.J., Wright, Connolly, Stephan, McCormack, Miller–Lerman, and Cassel, JJ.
is a question of law, which an appellate court independently decides.
3. Pleadings.A district court's denial of leave to amend pleadings is appropriate only in those limited circumstances in which undue delay, bad faith on the part of the moving party, futility of the amendment, or unfair prejudice to the nonmoving party can be demonstrated.
4. Negligence: Evidence.A defendant's tortious conduct is a question of fact that a defendant can judicially admit.
5. Negligence: Motor Vehicles: Evidence: Proximate Cause.When a defendant in a vehicle accident case admits to negligently causing the accident but denies the nature and extent of the plaintiff's injuries, evidence of the collision itself is admissible. In that circumstance, proximate causation is at issue and the evidence is relevant to show the nature of the contact and its force.
6. Pleadings: Evidence.A court's discretion to admit or exclude cumulative evidence on an admitted fact also applies to a court's decision to allow a pleading amendment that results in the production of that evidence.
7. Rules of the Supreme Court: Pleadings.In exercising its discretion to permit or deny an amendment regarding an admitted fact, a court should consider the prevailing factors under Neb. Ct. R. Pldg. § 6–1115(a). It should also consider whether the new allegations are relevant to a component of a party's claim or defense that the nonmoving party has not admitted.
8. Negligence: Damages.Nebraska law does not permit a plaintiff to obtain punitive damages over and above full compensation for the plaintiff's injuries.
9. Negligence: Evidence.In a negligence case, evidence intended to punish a defendant's conduct or deter similar conduct is not at issue.
10. Trial: Evidence: Juries: Final Orders.A motion in limine is a procedural step to prevent prejudicial evidence from reaching the jury, but the court's ruling on the motion is not a final order.
11. Trial: Evidence: Appeal and Error.To preserve error regarding a court's order in limine, a party resisting the order must make an appropriate objection or offer of proof at trial.
12. Jury Instructions: Proof: Appeal and Error.To establish reversible error from a court's failure to give a requested jury instruction, an appellant has the burden to show that (1) the tendered instruction is a correct statement of the law, (2) the tendered instruction was warranted by the evidence, and (3) the appellant was prejudiced by the court's failure to give the requested instruction.
13. Jury Instructions: Appeal and Error.Jury instructions do not constitute prejudicial error if, taken as a whole, they correctly state the law, are not misleading, and adequately cover the issues supported by the pleadings and evidence.
14. Negligence: Jury Instructions: Damages.In a negligence case, a court should instruct a jury on damages for the aggravation of a preexisting condition if the evidence would support that finding.
15. Juries: Verdicts: Presumptions.When the jury returns a general verdict for one party, an appellate court presumes that the jury found for the successful party on all issues raised by that party and presented to the jury.
16. Damages: Words and Phrases.In Nebraska, hedonic damages—which are damages to compensate a plaintiff for the loss of enjoyment of life resulting from his or her physical injuries—are subsumed within a plaintiff's damages for pain and suffering. They are not a separate category of damages.
17. Jury Instructions: Appeal and Error.A court does not err in failing to give an instruction if the substance of the proposed instruction is contained in those instructions actually given.
18. Jurors.There is no public right of access to the jurors' deliberations themselves.
19. Constitutional Law: Jurors: Rules of Evidence.Because there is no constitutional right to obtain information about a jury's deliberations, a court's discretion under Neb.Rev.Stat. § 25–1635 (Reissue 2008) to disclose juror information for good cause shown after a verdict should be tempered by the restrictions imposed under Neb. Evid. R. 606(2), Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27–606(2) (Reissue 2008).
20. Rules of Evidence: Judgments: Jury Misconduct.Neb. Evid. R. 606(2), Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27–606(2) (Reissue 2008), promotes the public interests of protecting jurors' freedom of deliberation and the finality of judgments, absent a plausible allegation of juror misconduct.
21. Jury Misconduct: Evidence.When an allegation of jury misconduct is made and is supported by a showing which tends to prove that serious misconduct occurred, the trial court should conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the alleged misconduct actually occurred.
22. Rules of Evidence: Verdicts: Jurors: Affidavits.Neb. Evid. R. 606(2), Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27–606(2) (Reissue 2008), prohibits admission of a juror's affidavit to impeach a verdict on the basis of the jury's motives, methods, misunderstanding, thought processes, or discussions during deliberations, which enter into the verdict.
23. Jurors: Verdicts.Absent a reasonable ground for investigating, posttrial interviews with jurors cannot be used as a fishing expedition to find some reason to attack a verdict.
Jan J. Golnick appeals from the district court's judgment in his negligence action against Jack W. Callender. Callender amended his answer to admit that he was negligent in causing the vehicle accident that injured Golnick. Thereafter, the court sustained Callender's motion to preclude evidence of his negligence at trial. The court also denied Golnick's request to amend his complaint to allege specific acts of tortious conduct and rejected three of his proposed jury instructions. The jury returned a verdict for Callender. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.
In October 2009, Golnick filed a complaint alleging that in October 2005, he and Callender were driving on the same street in opposite directions when Callender's vehicle crossed the centerline and crashed head on into Golnick's vehicle. He alleged that he sustained injuries as a “direct and proximate result of the crash.”
In Callender's original answer, he denied that the accident occurred as Golnick alleged. In 2013, Callender sought leave to file an amended answer. He still denied that the accident occurred as Golnick alleged, but he admitted that “he was negligent and that his negligence was the proximate cause of the accident.” He denied the nature and extent of Golnick's injuries and all other allegations.
Golnick objected to the amendment and moved to file an amended complaint, which would have alleged that when Callender crossed the centerline, he was distracted by his cell phone. At the hearing on the parties' proposed amendments,
Golnick offered a police report to show that (1) an issue of fact existed regarding Callender's denial that the accident happened as Golnick alleged and (2) Callender had not admitted to the relevant facts regarding the alleged negligence. The court received the police report for deciding whether to allow the pleading amendments.
At the hearing, the court stated that Golnick wanted to The court concluded that the issue was whether Callender had “proper control of his car, not whether he was on his cell phone.” The court overruled Golnick's objections to Callender's amended answer and overruled Golnick's request to amend his complaint.
Callender then moved for an order in limine to prohibit Golnick from presenting any evidence about Callender's negligence. As relevant here, Callender sought to exclude (1) evidence that he was distracted by his cell phone and (2) evidence that he was cited, charged, or convicted of a traffic violation because of the accident. Callender also sought to admit evidence of Golnick's pleadings in a pending negligence case about a 2007 vehicle accident involving Golnick. In both cases, Callender alleged that the accident caused Golnick to have permanent injuries to his neck, head, shoulder, and back. The court's rulings on these motions are not part of the record.
At the start of the trial, the court briefly explained to the jurors that while Golnick and Callender were traveling on the same street, Callender's vehicle crossed the centerline and struck Golnick's vehicle. The court also explained that because Callender admitted that his negligence caused the collision, they would not have to decide the cause of the collision.
In Golnick's opening statement, his attorney told the jurors that Callender had veered into oncoming traffic and hit Golnick's vehicle head on when Callender saw that the traffic in front of him had stopped. His attorney said that Golnick's preexisting eye problems and preexisting back problems did not account for the eye problems and back problems that Golnick began to experience within a month
after the accident. He also stated that Golnick's problems were not caused by a severe 2007 accident in which Golnick was struck from behind. He admitted that Golnick's problems were permanently worsened by the 2007 accident. But he stated that Golnick had already...
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