Maler By and Through Maler v. Baptist Hosp. of Miami, Inc., 89-756
| Decision Date | 26 December 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-756,89-756 |
| Parties | 15 Fla. L. Weekly D44 James MALER, Jr., a minor child By and Through his mother and natural guardian, Joni MALER, individually, and James Maler, Sr., individually, Petitioners, v. BAPTIST HOSPITAL OF MIAMI, INC., Respondent. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Adams, Hunter, Angones, Adams, Adams & McClure and Christopher Lynch; William O. Solms, Jr., for petitioners.
Parenti & Falk; Cooper, Wolfe & Bolotin and Marc Cooper, for respondent.
Before HUBBART, FERGUSON and COPE, JJ.
This is a petition for a writ of certiorari which seeks review of a trial court order granting a post-trial interview of jurors to be conducted in open court by the trial judge, after the jury had returned a verdict for the plaintiffs in a medical malpractice action. We have jurisdiction to entertain this petition and quash the order under review. Art. V, § 4(b)(3), Fla. Const.
The plaintiff-petitioners Joni and James Maler, Sr. brought a medical malpractice action below on behalf of their minor child, James Maler, Jr., against the respondent Baptist Hospital of Miami, Inc. and Dr. David Gair. The alleged basis for the malpractice claim was that the respondent and Dr. Gair had improperly treated a bacterial condition, which the minor child contracted at birth, resulting in severe brain damage to the child. The case was tried by a jury in the circuit court for seven days in February 1989; during the course of the trial, the plaintiff-petitioners settled with Dr. Gair and the case continued solely as to Baptist Hospital.
On March 1, 1989, the jury returned a special interrogatory verdict as follows:
"WE, the Jury, return the following verdict:
1. Was there negligence on the part of the Defendant, BAPTIST HOSPITAL OF MIAMI, INC., which was a legal cause of damage to the Plaintiff, JAMES MALER, JR.?
YES X NO
....
2. Was there negligence on the part of JAMES MALER, SR., or JONI MALER which was a legal cause of damages to the Plaintiff, JAMES MALER, JR.?
YES X NO
....
3. What is the total amount of negligence that you attribute to each of the parties.
BAPTIST HOSPITAL OF MIAMI, INC. 60 %
----
JAMES MALER, SR. 20 %
----
JONI MALER 20 %
----
Total must equal 100%
4. What is the total amount of damages sustained by the Plaintiffs and caused by the incident in question?
JAMES MALER, JR. 1,300,000
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JAMES MALER, SR., individually 100,000
---------
JONI MALER, individually 100,000 "
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Subsequently, each of the six jurors were polled at the request of the respondent Baptist Hospital and each juror affirmatively stated in open court that the above-stated verdict was his or her individual verdict. The trial judge then excused the jurors stating "[y]ou are free to discuss this case with anyone who will listen."
Two days later, counsel for the respondent Baptist Hospital, Michael J. Parenti filed a pleading advising the court of a chance conversation he had with two of the jurors who had tried the case; the conversation was initiated by the jurors and took place as counsel was leaving the courthouse after the jury verdict had been returned. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Parenti, on behalf of Baptist Hospital, filed a motion to interview all of the jurors in the case and, in support thereof attached (a) his own affidavit and (b) the affidavit of David Mishael, who was counsel for the co-defendant Dr. Gair and a witness to the conversation with the two jurors. These affidavits set forth the details concerning the conversation and form the basis for the request for a jury interview. According to the affidavits, the jurors, in essence, stated that the jury had reached its verdict based on sympathy for the plaintiff-petitioner minor child and the fact that Baptist Hospital had insurance.
Predicated on these affidavits, the trial court entered an order granting Baptist Hospital's motion to interview the jurors, and directed that the court itself would conduct the interview in open court. Subsequently, after this court temporarily relinquished jurisdiction, the trial court entered a further order directing that the following questions would be propounded to the jurors in open court:
In the event the answer to either of these questions is "yes," the trial court ordered that appropriate follow-up questions would be asked in the discretion of the court. The plaintiff-petitioners have filed the instant petition for certiorari challenging these orders directing the jury interview.
Although the issue is not free from doubt, we conclude that the two questions which the trial court proposes to ask the jury probe into matters which essentially inhere within the jury verdict and are therefore impermissible under well-settled principles of Florida law. Moreover, we do not think that any other inquiries of the jury could be properly framed based on the affidavits filed by counsel below because these affidavits raise, as well, matters which essentially inhere within the jury verdict and are beyond the scope of a proper post-trial jury inquiry.
Without question, both of the trial court's proposed questions inquire into the reasoning process and motivations of the jury in reaching their verdict, namely, (1) whether the jury agreed to decide the case for reasons outside the evidence, such as sympathy and insurance, and (2) whether the jury agreed to find for the injured child even though, in their opinion, the greater weight of the evidence supported a verdict for Baptist Hospital. It is, however, well settled in Florida that the jury's reasoning process or motivation in arriving at a verdict, even if erroneous or improper, is a matter which traditionally inheres within the jury verdict; it can form no basis for upsetting the verdict after the jury has returned and assented to it in open court, and may not be inquired into in a post-trial jury interview. 1
The Second District in Velsor v. Allstate Insurance Co., 329 So.2d 391 (Fla. 2d DCA), cert. dismissed, 336 So.2d 1179 (Fla.1976) states the controlling law:
Id. at 392-93 (footnotes omitted) (quoted Schofield v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 461 So.2d 152, 155 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984), rev. denied, 472 So.2d 1182 (Fla.1985)). The Second District, speaking through Judge (now Mr. Justice) Ben Overton, in Branch v. State, 212 So.2d 29 (Fla. 2d DCA 1968), further states the applicable law:
It is therefore settled in Florida that after a jury has returned and assented to a verdict in open court, as here, it is impermissible to receive juror affidavits or other testimony for the purpose of setting aside the verdict on the ground 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.' "
Russ v. State, 95 So.2d 594, 600 (Fla.1957); see Florida Dept. of Transp. v. Weggies Banana Boat, 545 So.2d 474, 475-76 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989). In accord therewith, Florida courts have further held that the following matters inhere within the jury verdict and can form no basis for vacating a jury verdict or conducting a post-trial jury interview: (a) an improper consideration of some jurors that the defendant had the burden to prove his innocence in a criminal case, Mitchell v. State, 527 So.2d 179, 181-82 (Fla.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 960, 109 S.Ct. 404, 102 L.Ed.2d 392 (1988); (b) an erroneous belief by one juror that a majority of the jury governed on the issue of guilt or innocence in a criminal case, State v. Ramirez, 73 So.2d 218 (Fla.1954); (c) an erroneous belief by the jury that the lesser offense of which they convicted the defendant was the highest offense charged, Smith v. State, 330 So.2d 59 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976) (); (d) a failure of the jury to follow an instruction by the court that they should disregard a co-defendant's confession insofar as it implicated the defendant, Branch v. State 212 So.2d 29 (Fla. 2d DCA 1968); (e) a disagreement among...
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...`that [the juror] was unduly influenced by the statements or otherwise of his fellow jurors ...'" Maler v. Baptist Hospital of Miami, Inc., 559 So.2d 1157, 1160 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989). In order to constitute juror misconduct, and, therefore, a matter extrinsic to the verdict sufficient to set a......