Greene v. Harwood
| Decision Date | 09 July 2007 |
| Docket Number | 58639-4-I |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
| Parties | JOHN P. GREENE, Appellant, v. KENT HARWOOD, Respondent, THE ESTATE OF DECEDENT RICHARD HARWOOD and JEANE HARWOOD, Defendants. |
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Kent Harwood accidentally caused John Greene to suffer a traumatic brain injury. Harwood conceded liability but contested damages. Greene's central claim at trial was that the injury caused vision problems which make it difficult for him to read and lowered his future earning capacity. A jury awarded Greene only $3,000 in general damages in addition to the past medical damages stipulated by the parties. Greene appeals numerous rulings by the trial court. But his only meritorious argument is that the trial court erred by imposing a $500 sanction against him for submitting evidence of settlement negotiations with his motion for additur or a new trial. The trial court failed to disclose its reasons for imposing the $500 sanction. Because CR 11 requires the court to state its reasons for imposing sanctions, we affirm in part, but reverse the $500 sanction and remand for reconsideration of that decision consistent with CR 11.
On October 4, 1992, John Greene and Kent Harwood were playing a game that involved Harwood launching Greene into the air. At the time, Greene was eight years old and Harwood was seventeen. During the game, Greene fell on his head and was injured. Greene was treated for his injuries at Highline Community Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a closed head injury and an occipital skull fracture. In 1996, Greene suffered two additional head injuries. He was hit in the head by a baseball and hit by a car while riding his bicycle.
On December 8, 2005, Greene filed an amended complaint, suing Harwood for negligence based on the 1992 accident.[1] Harwood conceded liability, and the court entered partial summary judgment on that issue. A jury trial solely on the issue of damages began on June 5, 2006.
Voir dire was conducted but not recorded. According to Greene's counsel and the presiding juror, during voir dire, several jurors who had denied believing that there were too many lawsuits agreed with the statement that our society is "sue happy." The next day, the court explained on the record that it allowed each side two twenty-minute rounds of questioning for voir dire, after which, Greene requested additional time and the court denied his request over his objection.
Greene objected to a number of evidentiary rulings at trial. He also objected to the court's decision to give a comparative negligence jury instruction based on the possibility that he might have been partially at fault for the 1996 bicycle-car accident.[2]The parties gave closing arguments on June 9, 2006, but those arguments were not recorded.
According to a post-trial declaration by the presiding juror, several jurors referred to personal experiences outside of the evidence presented at trial during their deliberations:
Juror no. 6 discussed that her daughter had read Harry Potter books while in elementary school, and that the font size was not that small, arguing that although the plaintiff tested at below a fourth grade level in reading, he should not be impaired from extended reading of a similar sort. Juror no. 1 stated that he suffered from a sudden onset of double-vision when he was in his late 20's, and that he has worn glasses with prisms in them since without needing the prism strength increased, and that therefore the plaintiff's vision problem should be correctable with lenses without his vision further degrading over time. Juror no. 12 argued that his mother is a master teacher, and based on what she had related to him regarding her teaching experiences, if the plaintiff has a reading disability from the skull fracture incident, it would have been detected by the teachers in his school, and that the reason for the drop in the plaintiff's reading grades therefore must have been that he was not trying or applying himself. . . .
On June 9, 2006, the jury awarded Greene $3,060.85 in past medical damages stipulated to by the parties and $3,000 in general damages. The jury found no comparative negligence.
On June 19, 2006, Greene filed a motion for additur or, in the alternative, a new trial. In support of that motion, he submitted evidence of settlement negotiations with the defendant's insurer. Harwood moved to strike all references to the settlement negotiations and for sanctions. The court granted his motion and imposed a $500 sanction on Greene.
On July 13, 2006, Harwood moved for offset, asking that $2,243.22 be deducted from the jury award based on medical bills already paid. On July 20, 2006, Greene's counsel sent a letter stating that he would not object to offset. But, after the court granted the motion for offset, Greene filed a motion for modification of judgment. The court denied that motion based on waiver and imposed a $200 sanction for the frivolous filing.
Greene appeals.
Under CR 59(a)(5), a trial court may grant a party's motion for a new trial if damages are so "inadequate as unmistakably to indicate that the verdict must have been the result of passion or prejudice." "Determination of the amount of damages is within the province of the jury, and courts are reluctant to interfere with a jury's damage award when fairly made."[3] A trial court abuses its discretion by denying a motion for a new trial where the verdict is contrary to the evidence.[4] To determine whether sufficient evidence supports the jury's verdict, the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.[5]
Greene argues the jury's decision not to award damages for future medical expenses and lost wages was contrary to the evidence. He relies on the Washington Supreme Court's holding in Palmer v. Jensen that a trial court abused its discretion by denying a new trial where the jury refused to award general damages despite uncontroverted proof of pain and suffering.[6] But this case is distinguishable from Palmer. There, the defense presented no evidence or expert testimony to refute plaintiff's evidence of pain and suffering.[7] Here, Harwood's expert's testimony and report, based on his examination of Greene and Greene's medical records, support a jury finding that Greene's 1992 injuries did not result in a permanent visual impairment of any significance, require no future medical treatment, and did not lessen his earning capacity. Thus, we hold the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying Greene's motion for a new trial based on the inadequacy of the damages awarded.
We review a trial court's decision that juror misconduct did not justify a new trial for abuse of discretion.[8] Verdicts may only be overturned on the basis of juror misconduct when (1) the affidavits of the jurors allege facts showing misconduct, and (2) those facts support a determination that the misconduct affected the verdict.[9] A party asserting juror misconduct bears the burden of showing that it occurred.[10] A strong affirmative showing of juror misconduct is required to impeach a verdict and overcome the policy favoring stable verdicts and the secret and frank discussion of the evidence by the jury.[11]
It is misconduct for a jury to consider extrinsic evidence.[12] Extrinsic evidence is information that is outside the evidence admitted at trial and is improper because it "is not subject to objection, cross-examination, explanation, or rebuttal."[13] But it is not misconduct for jurors to use common sense or consider their own life experiences in reaching a verdict.[14] We determine whether a juror's comments constitute extrinsic evidence rather than personal life experience by considering whether the comments impart the kind of specialized knowledge that is provided by expert witnesses at trial.[15]
Greene claims that the jury improperly considered extrinsic evidence because certain jurors referred to their personal experiences during deliberations. He relies on State v. Briggs, a 1989 case, in which we held that a juror impermissibly introduced extrinsic evidence into the jury's deliberations by sharing his own experiences with a speech problem in a case where the central issue involved the prevalence of a criminal defendant's stutter for identification purposes.[16] But the holding in Briggs was uniquely dependant on the fact that the same juror failed to disclose his experience with a speech disorder when asked about it at voir dire.[17]
More recent cases have permitted wide latitude to jurors referencing their personal experiences. In Breckenridge v. Valley General Hospital, the Washington Supreme Court held that a juror's comments about his personal experiences visiting an emergency room, used to determine whether a certain test should be administered as part of the standard of care, did not constitute impermissible extrinsic evidence.[18] In Richards v. Overlake Hospital Medical Center, we held that a juror who commented that, based on the medical records before the jury and her quasi-medical training, the birth defects plaintiff claimed were due to the hospital's negligence were more likely the result of the mother having had the flu 20 weeks into gestation did not impermissibly reference extrinsic evidence.[19]
Here, the comments of jurors based on their personal experiences with what elementary students can read, double vision, and testing for reading disabilities in school are no more specialized or similar to expert testimony than those in Breckenridge or Richards. These comments do not constitute misconduct.
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