Steak N Shake Inc. v. White
| Decision Date | 14 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | 4:18-cv-00072-SRC |
| Parties | STEAK N SHAKE, INC., Plaintiffs, v. MELISSA WHITE, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Social-media platforms may foster the reflexive, rather than reflective behavior that provides fertile ground from which the law of unintended consequences often springs forth. On the job at Steak N Shake, Melissa White thought she found worms in hamburger meat, and insisted her manager inspect the meat. And when she didn't find her manager's inspection up to her own standards, White, perhaps cloaking herself as a modern-day Upton Sinclair, rushed to post her accusations of Steak N Shake's purported sale of contaminated meat sales on Facebook. Encouraged by White's #SHARESHARESHARE, the velocity of social media soon took hold, and White's post received thousands of comments, largely (as perhaps White hoped) expressing disgust and outrage.
Steak N Shake then sued, claiming White defamed the restaurant and cost it lost sales of over a quarter-million dollars. After a four-day trial, the jury rendered a verdict against White for $70, 000 in actual damages and $10, 000 in punitive damages. White now seeks either a new trial or to have the Court reduce the verdict. The Court finds that while White aimed at-and reached-the stomachs of the social-media community she did not reach the minds or the hearts of the jury, and she has provided no basis for a second run.
Steak N Shake presented a single defamation claim against White. After both parties rested their cases, the Court instructed the jury, Doc. 213, and an eight-person jury found in favor of Steak N Shake through a general verdict, Doc. 217.
White now moves for a New Trial, Doc. 223, and for a New Trial and Remittitur, Doc. 224. White insists that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence and that the damages award was excessive. Docs. 223-224. White also contends that she deserves a remittitur of the $80, 000 in damages awarded by the jury. Doc. 224. The Court first addresses White's grounds for a new trial, before evaluating whether the jury's damages award warrants remittitur.
White contends that the jury's verdict was a miscarriage of justice because it was against the weight of the evidence and because the damages award was excessive. Doc. 223-1 at pp. 2, 5. The Court disagrees.
“The court may, on motion, grant a new trial on all or some of the issues-and to any party . . . after a jury trial, for any reason for which a new trial has heretofore been granted in an action at law in federal court.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(a)(1)(A). Respecting the Constitutional role of the jury, the law sets a high bar for granting a motion for a new trial, Howard v. Missouri Bone and Joint Center, Inc., 615 F.3d 991, 995 (8th Cir. 2010), and such motions are “generally disfavored.” United States v. Petroske, 928 F.3d 767, 774 (8th Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 140 S.Ct. 973 (2020) (quoting United States v. Morris, 817 F.3d 1116, 1121 (8th Cir. 2016)). Under Rule 59(a)(1)(A) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[a] new trial is appropriate when the first trial, through a verdict against the weight of the evidence, an excessive damage award, or legal errors at trial, resulted in a miscarriage of justice.” Gray v. Bicknell, 86 F.3d 1472, 1480 (8th Cir. 1996) (citations omitted).
1.Verdict as against the weight of the evidence
District courts have “great deference” in ruling on motions for a new trial. Wilson v. Lamp, 995 F.3d 628, 631 (8th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). In fact, “[w]hen the basis of the motion for a new trial is that the jury's verdict is against the weight of the evidence, the district court's denial of the motion is virtually unassailable on appeal.” Lincoln Composites, Inc. v. Firetrace USA, LLC, 825 F.3d 453, 459 (8th Cir. 2016) (quoting source omitted). In determining whether the jury's verdict is against the weight of the evidence, the Court “can rely on its own reading of the evidence-it can weigh the evidence, disbelieve witnesses, and grant a new trial even where there is substantial evidence to sustain the verdict.” Id. (). “The crucial determination ‘is whether a new trial should have been granted to avoid a miscarriage of justice.'” PFS Distribution Co. v. Raduechel, 574 F.3d 580, 589 (8th Cir. 2009) (quoting Keeper v. King, 130 F.3d 1309, 1314 (8th Cir. 1997).
In Jury Instruction No. 8, the Court instructed the jury on the elements of Steak N Shake's defamation claim:
Doc. 213 at p. 9. And in Jury Instruction No. 9, the Court instructed the jury that: “Your verdict must be for defendant Melissa White if you believe that the Facebook post was substantially true.” Id. at p. 10. The parties stipulated that White published the Facebook post and that members of the public read the statements in White's Facebook post, leaving the jury to focus on the second, third, and fifth elements. Doc. 126 at pp. 1-2.
White argues that the jury's verdict was against the weight of the evidence because the statements in her Facebook post were substantially true. Doc. 223-1 at pp. 2, 7 (). White asserts “truth” on the basis that she presented evidence during the trial that fly larvae were in the beef patty that she took from Steak N Shake. Id. at p. 2. White points to the testimony of her two expert witnesses: forensic entomologist Dr. Jeffery Tomberlin and food-safety expert Dr. Catherine Hutt. Id. at pp. 2-3. Dr. Tomberlin testified that he examined White's patty and identified fly larvae (maggots) inside of it, though he could not testify to when or how the larvae first appeared in the meat, leaving a significant gap in White's evidence. Dr. Hutt testified that Frank Tardy, White's manager at Steak N Shake, had failed to perform an adequate investigation into White's report of meat contamination and that the presence of maggots indicates that the other meat at the Steak N Shake store would have also been contaminated by maggots. Id. at pp. 2-3.
White suggests that Tardy's testimony was insufficient for the jury to find in Steak N Shake's favor. Id. at pp. 3-4. Tardy testified that he found no maggots in the meat after conducting his investigation, yet Tardy admitted that he did not look at White's patty and did not “tear apart” the meat that was already sitting at the grill. Further, White claims that Tardy did not stop the sale of the meat while he was at the store. Id. at p. 4. Therefore, White claims that the statements in her Facebook post were substantially true. White argues that because she “demonstrated” the presence of maggots in the patty, she cannot be liable for defamation. Id. at p. 2. She argues that Steak N Shake presented insufficient evidence to show that her statement in the Facebook post about the “worms” was untrue.
White essentially asks the Court to cast aside the jury's verdict because the jury should have believed her evidence and disregarded the evidence Steak N Shake presented, but doing so would gut the right to trial by jury. When a jury issues a general verdict which could be supported by more than one theory of liability, the Court may not speculate as to why the jury reached its decision. Coterel v. Dorel Juv. Grp., Inc., 827 F.3d 804, 808 (8th Cir. 2016); Lopez v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 690 F.3d 869, 878 (8th Cir. 2012); Regions Bank v. BMW N. Am., Inc., 406 F.3d 978, 980 (8th Cir. 2005); see also U.S. S.E.C. v. Quan, 817 F.3d 583, 592 n.6 (8th Cir. 2016) ( ) (citing Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 59-60 (1991)). Here, the jury could have found that any number of the statements in her Facebook post were not true.
First the parties hotly contested the presence of maggots in the meat, so the jury could have determined the patty did not contain maggots. White was the only witness who testified that she saw “worms” moving in her meat patty on January 5, 2018, and Tardy explained that sometimes fatty gristle can move about in the meat when the patty is placed on the grill. Police officer Rashad Lambert, who arrived on the scene as White was exiting the store, testified that he saw something moving in White's patty when she showed it to him, but he was not entirely sure that it was a “worm.” Tardy testified that he found no maggots in any of the meat he...
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