Sawyer v. Claar

• Decision Date: 07 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. 16804,16804
• Citation: 766 P.2d 792,115 Idaho 322
• Parties: Ralph H. SAWYER, Jr., Individually and as the Personal Representative of William Sawyer, a/k/a William F. Sawyer, Deceased; and June Sawyer, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Wayne Elbert CLAAR, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 792

766 P.2d 792

115 Idaho 322

Ralph H. SAWYER, Jr., Individually and as the Personal Representative of William Sawyer, a/k/a William F. Sawyer, Deceased; and June Sawyer, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Wayne Elbert CLAAR, Defendant-Respondent.

No. 16804.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

Dec. 7, 1988.

William B. Taylor, Jr., Grangeville, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Michael E. McNichols and John R. Stegner, Clements, Brown & McNichols, Lewiston, for defendant-respondent.

BURNETT, Judge.

The question posed by this appeal is whether a damage award for wrongful death is inadequate. For reasons explained below, we remand the case for reconsideration by the trial judge.

The background facts are undisputed. While driving along a two-lane road in rural Idaho County, William Sawyer was involved in a collision between his pickup and an oncoming logging truck driven by Wayne Claar. Sawyer died shortly after the accident. His parents, Ralph and June Sawyer, sued Claar for damages arising from wrongful death. The case was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict for the Sawyers in the amount of $5,000, of which $2,000 was a stipulated sum for funeral expenses. The jury also found that the decedent had been 25% negligent, resulting in a reduction of the judgment for comparative fault. Dissatisfied with the size of this award, the Sawyers moved for a new trial under I.R.C.P. 59(a)(5). The trial judge denied the motion and this appeal followed.

I

We first discuss our standard of review and the manner in which the district judge reached his decision. The standard is well settled. A trial judge's decision on a motion for new trial will be upheld on appeal unless there has been an abuse of discretion. See Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho 759, 727 P.2d 1187 (1986). Discretion will be deemed to be properly exercised where the trial court has "given due consideration to the facts and circumstances of the case, and [has] correctly applied the law [to those facts and circumstances]." Id. at 772, 727 P.2d at 1200.

To facilitate review according to this standard, the Idaho appellate courts have required trial judges to state their reasons for granting or denying motions for a new trial.

Appellate review of judicial discretion should not be result-oriented. An appellate court should not focus primarily upon the outcome of a discretionary decision below, but upon the process by which the trial judge reached his decision. In order for the appellate court to perform this function properly, it must be informed of the reasons for the trial court's decision. Unless those reasons are obvious from the record itself, they must be stated by the trial judge. Where the reasons are neither obvious nor stated, the appellate court is left to speculate about the trial court's perception of the law and knowledge of the facts. As a practical matter, the appellate court finds itself locked into a result-oriented review.

Sheets v. Agro-West, Inc., 104 Idaho 880, 888, 664 P.2d 787, 795 (Ct.App.1983) (concurring opinion). See also Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho at 772, 727 P.2d at 1200.

In reaching its decision, the trial court follows a well-defined methodology prescribed by our Supreme Court:

Where a motion for a new trial is premised on inadequate or excessive damages, the trial court must weigh the evidence and then compare the jury's award to what he would have given had there been no jury. If the disparity is so great that it appears to the trial court that the award was given under the influence of passion or prejudice, the verdict ought not stand. It need not be proven that there was in fact passion or prejudice nor is it necessary to point to such in the record. The appearance of such is sufficient. A trial court is not restricted to ruling a verdict inadequate or excessive "as a matter of law." Additionally, the rule that a verdict will not be set aside when supported by substantial but conflicting evidence has no application to a trial court ruling upon a motion for a new trial.

Dinneen v. Finch, 100 Idaho 620, 625-26, 603 P.2d 575, 580-81 (1979) (emphasis original, citations omitted).

Often the trial judge's figure for damages will differ from that reached by the jury. However, the judge's authority to disturb the verdict is limited. Respect for the function of the jury prevents the granting of a new trial except in unusual circumstances.

[S]ince it is a jury function to set the damage award based on its sense of fairness and justice, the trial judge must defer to the jury, unless it is apparent to the trial judge that there is a great disparity between the two damage awards and that disparity cannot be explained away as simply the product of two separate entities valuing the proof of the plaintiff's injuries in two equally fair ways.

In other words, if the trial judge discovers that his determination of damages is so substantially different from that of the jury that he can only explain this difference as resulting from some unfair behavior, or what the law calls "passion or prejudice," on the part of the jury against one or some of the parties, then he should grant a new trial. How substantial this difference must be is impossible to formulate with any degree of accuracy. It will necessarily vary with the factual context of each case and the trial judge's sense of fairness and justice.

Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho at 769, 727 P.2d at 1197 (emphasis original).

In sum, Dinneen and Quick do not countenance automatic substitution of a judge's damage award for that of the jury whenever the two differ. Rather, the trial judge must follow a carefully delineated process. First, the judge must weigh the evidence to determine whether it supports the verdict. If the verdict could be sustained upon substantial evidence, but the trial judge nonetheless believes an injustice has occurred because the verdict is excessive or inadequate, then he must determine whether the jury appears to have acted under the influence of passion or prejudice. See I.R.C.P. 59(a)(5). In making this determination, the trial judge looks to the disparity between the jury's award and his own assessment of damages, asking whether such a disparity could exist in "two equally fair" evaluations of damages. Sanchez v. Galey, 112 Idaho 609, 615, 733 P.2d 1234, 1240 (1986) (quoting Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho at 769, 727 P.2d at 1197).

Here, the Sawyers contend that the trial judge reached his decision improperly because he did not state the amount that he would have awarded had the case not been tried to a jury. The primary justification for requiring a judge to express an opinion as to the appropriate amount of damages is that it will assist the appellate court in determining that discretion has been exercised in conformity with the Dinneen- Quick methodology. However, we believe that where the trial judge fully states his reasons for denying the motion for new trial, his failure to specify a dollar figure does not require automatic reversal. After all, it is the judge's sense of a disparity and the reason for it, rather than the dollar difference per se, which is critical to his proper exercise of discretion.

In the present case, the trial judge made findings and provided detailed reasons for his decision to deny the Sawyers' motion. As he explained:

The record would reflect that this Court has weighed the evidence received in this trial, and furthermore, that it has considered the credibility of the witnesses, and I have in fact compared the jury's award to what I would have awarded in this action had there been no jury.

Initially, I think, it should be pointed out that there seems to be a glaring absence of facts in this case which would have resulted in a verdict influenced by passion or prejudice, as it applied to the Plaintiffs.

Now, all of this does not mean, of course, that therefore, a 59(a)(5) motion should not be granted. Or simply stated, if it appears that this verdict was given under the influence of passion or prejudice as a result of the dollar award alone, a new trial could be granted, regardless of the Court's failure to find any facts that were introduced at trial which would tend to inflame the passions or prejudices of the jury.

We're also, gentlemen, dealing with another problem in this particular case, that is, we're dealing with the loss of comfort and society, which is a very difficult loss to quantify. The fact that it's a difficult loss to quantify, however, doesn't mean that any award, no matter how small or how large it is, can be rubber stamped by the Court simply because his guess would be as good as their's. And, in fact, this Court is required and this Court has made it's own evaluation of what would be proper in this case.

It is first of all, this Court's determination that the verdict received and rendered by the jury is supported by substantial, competent evidence.

Secondly, the disparity between the Court's evaluation and the jury verdict is not so great that it appears that the award was given under the influence of passion or prejudice.

Thirdly, the verdict does not present the appearance of passion or prejudice.

Fourthly, the disparity is not so great that the verdict of the jury shocks my conscience.

Number five, the disparity is not so great that I would conclude that it would be unconscionable to let the damage award stand as the jury set it.

This Court does not perceive that a miscarriage of justice occurred in this case. I think it is very important that this Court simply not substitute its own opinion as to what the verdict should have been. This Court must have an understanding and a respect for the collective wisdom of the jury, regardless of some doubts that I may have about their conclusions.

The judge concluded that the verdict was not inadequate.

We believe the reasons given by the trial judge were sufficient to disclose his thought processes. Furthermore, the judge's analysis closely tracked the standards grafted...