Roll v. City of Middleton

• Decision Date: 09 March 1989
• Docket Number: No. 16760,16760
• Citation: 115 Idaho 833,771 P.2d 54
• Parties: Richard L. ROLL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MIDDLETON, a municipal corporation; Alice M. Lanning, individually and in her capacity as Mayor of the City of Middleton, Idaho; Joe Gunics, Jack Jones, Curtis Kessler and Lloyd F. Bowen, each individually and in their respective official capacities as the City Council of the City of Middleton; and Gerald Aldrich, individually and in his official capacity as Superintendent of Public Works of the City of Middleton, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 54

771 P.2d 54

115 Idaho 833

Richard L. ROLL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MIDDLETON, a municipal corporation; Alice M. Lanning, individually and in her capacity as Mayor of the City of Middleton, Idaho; Joe Gunics, Jack Jones, Curtis Kessler and Lloyd F. Bowen, each individually and in their respective official capacities as the City Council of the City of Middleton; and Gerald Aldrich, individually and in his official capacity as Superintendent of Public Works of the City of Middleton, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 16760.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

March 9, 1989.

Rehearing Denied March 9, 1989.

[115 Idaho 834] Richard L. Roll, pro se.

David L. Whitney and Ronald P. Rainey (Alexanderson, Davis, Rainey, Whitney & Kerrick), Caldwell, for defendants-respondents.

SUBSTITUTE OPINION

The Court's prior opinion dated November 4, 1988, is hereby withdrawn.

BURNETT, Judge.

This is an employment termination case involving a public employee. The principal issue is whether a jury verdict in favor of the employer should be set aside for juror misconduct. The district judge said no, and he denied the employee's motion for a new trial. Today we vacate the judge's order and remand the case for reconsideration of the motion. We also offer guidance on other issues, in the event a new trial is granted.

I

In 1975 Richard Roll was hired by the City of Middleton as a general laborer. During his employment, the City adopted and distributed to its employees an "Employment Policy Statement." The document enunciated certain grounds for which an employee could be terminated. Roll subsequently engaged in conduct which the City deemed to violate the policy statement. Roll's conduct included (1) reporting late for work on a number of occasions; (2) failing to appear for work on several other occasions, ostensibly because of illness; and (3) borrowing city-owned equipment for personal use, without authorization. In 1981 the City Council voted to terminate Roll's employment on all three grounds.

Roll sued for damages. His complaint alleged breach of contract, "tortious termination" of employment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Upon the City's motion, the district court entered partial summary judgment against Roll's claims of "tortious termination" and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court also dismissed the breach of contract claim with respect to all defendants except the City. The partial summary judgment was certified as final under I.R.C.P. 54(b). Roll did not appeal.

The claims having been narrowed to breach of contract by the City, the case went to trial. On the issue of Roll's tardiness at work, the evidence was conflicting. On the issue of his alleged failure to appear for work, the evidence tended to show that he had conformed to the City's regulations governing sick leave. Finally, on the issue of Roll's use of municipal equipment for personal purposes, the evidence indicated that he had received his supervisor's permission.

The jury returned a verdict on special interrogatories. By a vote of ten members, the jury found that a contract of employment had existed between Roll and the City, and that the contract allowed Roll to be terminated only for good cause. Consequently, Roll was not an employee "at will." However, the jury also found that good cause existed for terminating his employment. The jury was not asked to specify which ground(s) for termination constituted the good cause. Roll moved for a new trial--not attacking the verdict directly, but alleging that the jury's deliberations had been tainted by extraneous information. The motion was based upon the following provisions of I.R.C.P. 59(a):

A new trial may be granted to all or any of the parties and on all or part of the issues in an action for any of the following reasons:

(1) Irregularity in the proceedings of the court, jury or adverse party or any order of the court or abuse of discretion by which either party was prevented from having a fair trial.

(2) Misconduct of the jury.

....

Roll supported his motion with affidavits of three jurors, two of whom had refused to sign the verdict. These affiants stated that during the jury deliberations, one of the jurors (whom we will call Mrs. K) reported discussing the case with her son, who told her that he was familiar with the litigation and that Roll had lost an earlier appeal in the Idaho Supreme Court. ¹ In response to these affidavits, the City filed ten counter-affidavits. Eight of the jurors who had signed the verdict said they did not remember hearing Mrs. K's remarks and, in any event, that such remarks did not affect their votes on the verdict. A ninth juror, who had executed one of the affidavits submitted by Roll, said in a supplementary affidavit that her vote in favor of the verdict had not been affected by Mrs. K's remarks. The tenth juror, Mrs. K, denied having any improper discussion with her son or making the alleged comments to other jurors.

A hearing was conducted on Roll's motion for a new trial. The district judge considered the arguments of counsel and examined the jurors' affidavits. No jurors testified. Counsel for the City contended that a new trial should be denied unless the judge found it probable that Mrs. K's alleged misconduct had resulted in prejudice. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge declared from the bench that the case on its merits had been "very close," and that "the jury could have reached two verdicts in this case, ... both of [which] were reasonable." The judge then stated that he would "assume" the jury had followed his general instruction to disregard extraneous information. Implicitly finding that such information had been communicated to the jury, the judge focused on whether prejudice had occurred. He concluded that it had not. He explained that his conclusion was "not based on what the jurors might say," but was based on his impression "from all the facts and circumstances and from being present at the trial, that the jurors ... were not improperly influenced by the comments of [Mrs. K]." Later, the judge signed a written order denying the motion for a new trial and reiterating that "the injection of an alleged improper statement by a juror during deliberations did not prejudice the jury deliberations or resulting verdict...." This appeal followed.

II

The general standard for reviewing the grant or denial of a new trial under I.R.C.P. 59(a) is well settled. The trial court's decision will be upheld unless the judge has abused his discretion. E.g., Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho 759, 727 P.2d 1187 (1986). However, as in other discretion-exercising functions, the trial court's authority is not boundless. In determining whether such discretion has been properly exercised, we conduct a multi-tiered inquiry. We ask (1) whether the lower court rightly perceived the issue as one of discretion; (2) whether the court acted within the outer boundaries of its discretion and consistently with any legal standards applicable to specific choices; and (3) whether the court reached its decision by an exercise of reason. Associates Northwest, Inc. v. Beets, 112 Idaho 603, 733 P.2d 824 (Ct.App.1987). In this case, our analysis centers on the second query--whether the trial judge acted consistently with legal standards governing his discretionary ruling.

A

For nearly a century in Idaho, a new trial could not be granted upon the ground of jury misconduct unless the jurors had reached their verdict by chance. See, e.g., Dawson v. Eldredge, 84 Idaho 331, 372 P.2d 414 (1962) (applying former I.C. § 10-602, now repealed). Until 1985, I.R.C.P. 59(a)(2) juxtaposed a broad reference to "misconduct of the jury" with a more particular reference to verdicts produced "by a resort to the determination of chance...." In Black v. Reynolds, 109 Idaho 277, 707 P.2d 388 (1985), our Supreme Court construed this juxtaposition to mean that the phrase "misconduct of the jury" was limited by the language which followed. Thus, Idaho practice generally conformed to the common law prohibition against impeachment of jury verdicts. See generally McDonald v. Pless, 238 U.S. 264, 35 S.Ct. 783, 59 L.Ed. 1300 (1915).

In 1985, however, our Supreme Court deleted the restrictive language of I.R.C.P. 59(a), leaving no limitation in the rule upon the kind of "misconduct" that could result in a new trial. This broadening of Rule 59(a) was partially offset by concurrent adoption of the Idaho Rules of Evidence in 1985. Rule 606(b), I.R.E., has placed a practical limitation upon the "irregularit[ies]" under I.R.C.P. 59(a)(1), or jury "misconduct" under I.R.C.P. 59(a)(2), for which a new trial can be granted. It bars jurors from giving evidence concerning their mental processes or deliberations, except that jurors may identify any "extraneous prejudicial information," any "outside influence," or any "resort to chance." ² In the present case, the parties presented affidavits falling within the "extraneous prejudicial information" exception. ³ As we have noted, however, the judge ultimately concluded that no prejudice had occurred.

B

Consequently, we must decide whether the district judge applied the proper legal standard when making his determination on prejudice. In determining that prejudice had not occurred, the judge apparently adopted a standard of actual prejudice. As we shall now explain, we believe the proper test is whether prejudice reasonably could have occurred.

Because new trials for jury misconduct were severely restricted in Idaho until 1985, we have no body of case law in this state defining the proper standard of prejudice. However, our Supreme Court has addressed the subject in the context of other irregularities affecting jury verdicts. In a case where a litigant engaged in conduct calculated to influence the jury, our Territorial Supreme Court held that the conduct warranted a new trial and that the Court would "not attempt to calculate its...