Patten v. Newton
| Decision Date | 31 March 1960 |
| Citation | 159 A.2d 809,102 N.H. 444 |
| Parties | Roy E. PATTEN v. Roland W. NEWTON. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
1. Promptness in returning a jury verdict does not by itself establish that the jury failed to properly perform its duties or that there was misconduct on the part of the jury.
2. Hence, in a routine motor vehicle tort action where the jury was instructed to first determine the issue of the defendant's negligence, the returning of a verdict for the defendant eight minutes after retiring to the jury room did not as a matter of law establish misconduct on the part of the jury, and the record disclosed no abuse of discretion in the Trial Court's denial of a new trial which implied the finding that the verdict was not in disregard of the jury's duty to consider all the evidence.
3. Whether a remark by a member of the jury at recess during the course of the trial, and overheard by deputy sheriff, indicated bias and whether the entire jury should have been interrogated in respect to their verdict were questions for the Presiding Justice to determine.
Action of case, to recover damages for personal injuries to the plaintiff, a pedestrian, who was hit by the defendant's motor vehicle. The plaintiff was walking diagonally across the highway from west to east and had taken one or two steps across the center line of the highway when he saw the defendant's motor vehicle approaching in a northerly direction from the south and heard the defendant blow his horn. The plaintiff then ran back to the westerly side of the highway, and the defendant to avoid the plaintiff also turned to the westerly side of the highway where he struck the plaintiff. The plaintiff testified he looked both ways before starting to cross the highway and saw no motor vehicle approaching. There was evidence that the plaintiff could see a vehicle 500 feet in a southerly direction. Trial by jury, following a view, resulted in a verdict for the defendant.
The plaintiff's motions for a new trial and to set aside the verdict on the grounds that the jury failed to deliberate and dispassionately consider the evidence and that a juror was prejudiced was denied by Grimes, J., who reserved and transferred the plaintiff's exceptions thereto. Additional facts appear in the opinion.
Bernard I. Snierson and John P. Chandler, Laconia, for plaintiff.
Nighswander, Lord & Bownes, Laconia, Hugh H. Bownes, Laconia, for defendant.
This is a case of an expeditious jury.
It appears from the notes of the stenographer that the jury retired to the jury room in the afternoon at 3:13 and returned their verdict at 3:21. This period of eight minutes might be described as the portal-to-portal time since some portion of this period was required to go to and from the jury room. There was also testimony of a deputy sheriff that the period of jury deliberation was 'slightly over three minutes.'
Curiously enough the question whether 'the brevity of the jury's deliberations established inadequate consideration of the issues' has received only cursory attention in this state (Colburn v. Normand, 96 N.H. 250, 255, 74 A.2d 559) and has been given only summary consideration elsewhere. 9 Blashfield, Cyc. of Automobile Law & Practice, s. 5909, note 63; 3 Barron & Holtzoff, Federal Practice & Procedure, pp. 369, 370. In those cases where the period of jury deliberations has been twenty to thirty minutes, motions to set aside the verdict or for new trials have usually been denied on the ground that ordinarily the time consumed by a jury in its deliberations is no criterion of the merits of their determination of the case. Carrara v. Noonan, 69 R.I. 111, 31 A.2d 424; Urquhart v. Durham & S. C. R. Co., 156 N.C. 581, 72 S.E. 630; Broxson v. Robinson, 143 Wash. 1, 254 P. 252; Val Decker Packing Co. v. Treon, 88 Ohio App. 479, 97 N.E.2d 696. In this type of case it has been pointed out that in passing on a motion for a new trial the controlling consideration is the nature of the evidence and not the time that the jury consumes in reaching its verdict. Mahoney v. Smith, 78 R.I. 56, 78 A.2d 798; Conner v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., D.C.E.D.Pa.1958, 163 F.Supp. 718, affirmed Conner v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 3 Cir., 1959, 263 F.2d 944.
In the present case the issues are not complicated even though the jury were given instructions relating to negligence, contributory negligence, last clear chance and action in emergencies. Essentially, the case was routine in nature involving the familiar question whether the defendant's negligence, if any, was causal and if so, whether the plaintiff was barred by contributory negligence. The jury were instructed to first determine the...
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Cuthbertson v. Clark Equipment Co.
...159 Me. 485, 195 A.2d 414 (1963); Segars v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co., 286 F.2d 767, 770 (4th Cir. 1961); Patten v. Newton, 102 N.H. 444, 159 A.2d 809 (1960). Although it was impossible for each of the jurors to have examined every one of the numerous exhibits during the deliberation......
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State v. Jones
...A.2d 507, 508-09 (1962) (declining to exercise superintending power where court did not abuse its discretion); Patten v. Newton, 102 N.H. 444, 447, 159 A.2d 809, 811 (1960) (declining to exercise superintending power where record described no abuse of discretion by trial court). We therefor......
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Segars v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, 8158.
...verdicts is exhaustively treated by Chief Justice Kenison of the New Hampshire Supreme Court in the recent case of Patten v. Newton, 1960, 102 N.H. 444, 159 A.2d 809, 810, and the following is in accord with our views, and the views of other courts, both state and federal, who have had an o......
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State v. Lumbra, 571
...v. Ford, 58 R.I. 111, 191 A. 501; Alabama Farm Bureau Mut. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Dalrymple, 270 Ala. 119, 116 So.2d 924; Patten v. Newton, 102 N.H. 444, 159 A.2d 809; and generally 89 C.J.S. Trial § 462, p. We think that the trial court might well have considered, in the light of the evidence, t......