Harris v. Deere & Co.

• Decision Date: 22 March 1978
• Docket Number: No. 60075,60075
• Citation: 263 N.W.2d 727
• Parties: Randall HARRIS and Ann Harris, Appellants, v. DEERE & COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 727

263 N.W.2d 727

Randall HARRIS and Ann Harris, Appellants, v. DEERE & COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 60075.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 22, 1978.

Robert F. Leonard, Sidney, for appellants.

Smith, Peterson, Beckman & Willson, Council Bluffs, for appellee.

Considered by MOORE, C. J., and REES, UHLENHOPP, HARRIS and McCORMICK, JJ.

UHLENHOPP, Justice.

We must decide in this appeal whether plaintiffs Randall and Ann Harris, spouses, are entitled to a new trial against defendant Deere & Company because of claimed jury misconduct.

Randall Harris was the hired man of Harold and Ronald Gruber on a farm. He sustained severe injuries when, without turning off the power, he swung his leg over the front of a silage unloading wagon to push down jammed silage. He became entangled in the beaters in the wagon.

Harrises sued Grubers and also Deere, which manufactured the wagon. At trial they settled with Grubers for $20,000 and proceeded against Deere. In its instructions the trial court informed the jury that Harrises and Grubers had settled. Following 21 hours of deliberation spread over four days, the jury returned a ten-to-two verdict for Deere. After the trial court denied a motion for new trial, Harrises appealed.

In their appeal Harrises rely on jury misconduct in discussing the following subjects during deliberations: settlement with Grubers for $20,000, the right of Randall Harris to receive social security benefits, whether awarding Randall Harris a substantial sum would be in his best interest, and the personal experience of one of the jurors in overcoming a polio disability. Harrises also rely on the act of a juror in looking up the words "control" and "lever" in a dictionary.

Harrises presented the affidavits of five jurors. As to discussion of the settlement, a juror stated in an affidavit:

One of the jurors informed the other jurors that he had had a conversation with Harold Gruber, one of the parties, after the selection of the jury and that Mr. Gruber had informed him that the matter between the Grubers and Harris' had been settled and the amount thereof was $20,000.00.

The other affidavits do not contain this statement.

As to social security benefits, a juror stated in an affidavit:

The matter of Randall Harris drawing social security disability benefits was brought up and discussed by the jurors.

All of the other four juror affidavits contain such a statement.

As to whether awarding a substantial sum would be in the best interest of Randall Harris, a juror stated in an affidavit:

The fact that if Randall Harris received a substantial sum of money he may quit his job and that this would not be to his best interest was also brought up and discussed.

This statement also appears in all four of the other affidavits.

As to the experience of a juror in overcoming polio, a juror stated in an affidavit:

It was also brought up and discussed in the jury room that one of the members of the jury had had polio as a young person and that this individual had gotten over his disability and that Randall Harris could work and overcome his.

Two of the other jurors' affidavits contained this statement.

As to use of a dictionary, one of the jurors stated in an affidavit:

On the morning of Thursday, June 17, 1976, the date the verdict was returned and prior to going to the jury room for deliberations I requested and received from the Clerk of Court a dictionary and I, before entering the jury room looked up the words "control" and "lever" and I then took the dictionary to the jury room and laid the same on the table and informed the other jurors that I had looked up the words.

The other affidavits do not contain such a statement.

I. Trial courts have broad discretion in ruling on motions predicated on jury misconduct. We stated in State v. Houston, 209 N.W.2d 42, 44 (Iowa):

Trial court has broad discretion in determining whether evidence of claimed jury misconduct justifies a new trial. . . . Trial court's holding will not be set aside on appeal except upon showing an abuse of such discretion.

See also State v. Lass, 228 N.W.2d 758, 771 (Iowa) ("Trial courts have broad discretion in these matters."); State v. Berch, 222 N.W.2d 741, 747 (Iowa) ("We have repeatedly held trial courts have broad discretion in determining whether evidence of claimed jury misconduct justifies a new trial.")

II. Motions based on alleged jury misconduct involve two basic problems: the procedural problem of proving the facts as to what happened, and the substantive problem of the effect of the facts which are proven. As to the first problem, jurors may give evidence of objective facts as to what actually transpired in or out of the jury room bearing on misconduct. Wright v. Illinois & Mississippi Tel. Co., 20 Iowa 195, 210 ("as that a juror was improperly approached by a party, his agent, or attorney; that witnesses or others conversed as to the facts or merits of the cause, out of court and in the presence of jurors; that the verdict was determined by aggregation and average or by lot, or game of chance or other artifice or improper manner"). But jurors' statements of a subjective nature as to what influenced their decision are incompetent. Id. ("as that the juror did not assent to the verdict; that he misunderstood the instructions of the court; the statements of the witnesses or the pleadings in the case; that he was unduly influenced by the statements or otherwise of his fellow jurors, or mistaken in his calculations or judgment, or other matter resting alone in the juror's breast"). See Comment, 45 Iowa L.Rev. 649; Note, 10 Drake L.Rev. 126; Rule 606(b) and Advisory Committee Note, Federal Rules of Evidence (more restrictive federal rule); Rule 301, Model Code of Evidence; Rule 606(b), Uniform Rules of Evidence; 8 Wigmore, Evidence, §§ 2352-2354 (McNaughton Rev. Ed.); McCormick, Evidence, § 68 at 148-149 (2nd Ed.).

III. As to the second problem, once the objective facts are proven as to what transpired relief is available only if two elements appear. First, the acts or statements complained of must exceed tolerable bounds of jury deliberation, that is, they must constitute jury misconduct. Of necessity jurors have considerable latitude in their deliberations, and conduct or occurrences which are within tolerable limits are said to "inhere in the verdict" or constitute no ground for "impeachment of the verdict." This court stated in Long v. Gilchrist, 251 Iowa 1294, 1299, 105 N.W.2d 82, 85:

We cannot consider the mass of the back and forth argument in the jury room, entered into prior to the final verdict. All such matters inhere in the verdict. A juror cannot impeach his own verdict. If we were to analyze and review and sometimes reject as misconduct all arguments in a jury room, there would never be a finality as to jury verdicts. Even if the argument oftentimes roams far afield, it ultimately inheres in the unanimous verdict.

See also State v. Houston, supra, 209 N.W.2d 42, 45 (Iowa) ("Historically, we have considered such situations with a bemused but limited tolerance for the ingenuity of jurors and the realization a rigid approach would result in interminable litigation."); State v. Lass, supra, 228 N.W.2d 758, 771 (Iowa) ("As a practical matter, courts cannot be too strict on jury discussions or few verdicts could stand."); State v. Smith, 240 N.W.2d 693, 696 (Iowa) ("Differences of opinion in the jury room cannot be avoided, and courts properly are reluctant to intrude upon the give-and-take discussions, frequently heated and sometimes offensive, which lead to a verdict. They are part of the jury process. Such matters are said to inhere in the verdict and cannot be used to impeach it.").

The other element is embodied in the rule, "In order to justify a new trial on the basis of misconduct of jurors it must appear the misconduct was calculated to, and it is reasonably probable it did, influence the verdict." In re Estate of Cory, 169 N.W.2d 837, 845 (Iowa). This rule, like the others we have stated, applies in both civil and criminal cases. Fischer, Inc. v. Standard Brands, Inc., 204 N.W.2d 579 (Iowa); State v. Houston, supra, 209 N.W.2d 42 (Iowa); Giltner v. Stark, 219 N.W.2d 700 (Iowa); State v. Feddersen, 230 N.W.2d 510 (Iowa).

IV. The ultimate question for us is whether the trial court abused its discretion in overruling the motion for new trial based on the jurors' affidavits. We will assume arguendo under the first problem that the affidavits are competent to prove what they state that they establish the facts related in them. We must then confront the two elements under the second problem. Was the jury's conduct misconduct or was it within tolerable limits? If it was misconduct, does a reasonable probability appear that it influenced the verdict? The parties have cited a number of our decisions, which appear fairly representative of our cases on this subject. For guidance in deciding this case, we review those decisions chronologically.

The first decision, decided in 1866, is Wright v. Illinois & Mississippi Tel. Co., supra, 20 Iowa 195. That case involved a quotient verdict, which this court held required reversal of an order denying a new trial. We have no indication in the present case, however, of a verdict by lot, aggregate, or quotient.

Next is Griffin v. Harriman, 74 Iowa 436, 438, 38 N.W. 139, 140. During deliberations a juror made statements on a material issue in the case as shown by affidavit: " 'J. P. Smith, who was a trial juror on said cause, after he got in the jury-room to deliberate on a verdict, stated to the jury that he was personally acquainted with the premises in controversy, and that the land was very poor land, to his personal knowledge; and he used said alleged fact in argument, and for the purpose of influencing the jury to find for plaintiff in the sum of twenty-five dollars; and said fact influenced him (affiant) in rendering a verdict as rendered in this cause.' " Two...