Turyna v. Martam Const. Co., Inc., 95-1278
| Decision Date | 30 May 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-1278,95-1278 |
| Citation | 83 F.3d 178 |
| Parties | 131 Lab.Cas. P 33,390, 3 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 634 Brad J. TURYNA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MARTAM CONSTRUCTION CO., INC., Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 91 C 5965--Anthony A. Alaimo, Judge. *
James F. Hendricks, Christine A. Greener (argued), Brittain, Sledz, Morris & Slovak, Chicago, IL, for Brad J. Turyna.
Gail C. Kalinich, Ross & Hardies, Chicago, IL, Paul T. Kalinich (argued), Kalinich & McCluskey, P.C., Glen Ellyn, IL, for Martam Const. Co.
Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and MANION and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.
Murphy's Law was in full operation when the district court submitted this case to the jury, when the jury considered it, when the court received the verdict, and when judgment was rendered. Because the verdict as returned appears to be internally inconsistent, and the form itself is hopelessly confused, we reluctantly reverse and remand for a new trial.
The underlying lawsuit was relatively straightforward. Brad Turyna went to work for Martam Construction (Martam) as a truck driver in January 1986. He worked there until September 26, 1989, when he was fired. Almost two years later, Turyna filed this lawsuit against Martam, Tamas Kutrovacz (owner and president of Martam), and Claude Koenig (a vice-president of Martam), claiming (1) that Martam owed him overtime pay from September 19, 1988, through September 26, 1989, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201, and (2) that his firing violated the public policy of Illinois and FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3), because it was retaliatory in certain respects. The case went to trial in May 1994 before a jury. At the close of Turyna's case, the court entered a judgment as a matter of law on a supplemental claim of breach of an oral contract, but the overtime and retaliatory discharge claims were allowed to proceed.
The case was submitted to the jury on a form that wasn't quite a general verdict form, but it wasn't special verdicts under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 49(a) or a general verdict with interrogatories under Rule 49(b) either. For ease in understanding what follows, we have attached the three-page form to this opinion as Appendix A. It asks the jury to indicate for each Count whether it ruled for plaintiff or against plaintiff, with respect to each defendant. The word "Damages" then appears in the middle of the second page, with blanks for the jury to complete with amounts for compensatory damages and punitive damages. With respect to damages, the court instructed the jury as follows:
Now, if you find in favor of defendants on both Counts I and II, then you, of course, need not consider the issue of damages. If, however, you find in plaintiff's favor on Count I and/or on either or both parts of Count II, then you will need to consider the issue of damages.
While the jury was out, there was a colloquy on the record between the court and defense counsel. The court informed counsel that he would like the lawyers to stay within five minutes of the courtroom, because he hated to have the jury wait once it was ready with a verdict. Mr. Kalinich, Martam's lawyer, responded by saying "I was going to waive the presence." The judge indicated that the lawyer was free to do so, but the judge wondered if the client would agree to the waiver. Mr. Kalinich assured him that the client would agree, and the court excused him. At oral argument, we learned that plaintiff's counsel was also absent from the courtroom when the jury returned its verdict. Thus, no one with any incentive to take action was present when the next events occurred, with the exception of the district judge.
When the jury returned with its verdict, the court confronted a situation that was confusing at best. The jury checked the lines "for plaintiff" with respect to all three defendants on Count I, which was labelled "Fair Labor Standards Act." It checked the lines "against plaintiff" for all three defendants for both "Count II--Retaliation under Fair Labor Standards Act," and "Count II--Retaliation under Public Policy of Illinois." In the section labelled "Damages" the jury filled in the amount of $3,109.22 as compensatory damages, which it identified as unpaid overtime wages. Part (b) of the Damages section asked the jury whether it wished to award the plaintiff punitive damages under Count II, and if so, in what amount. However, upon turning the page the jury reached a new "Count II--Retaliatory Discharge under FLSA" section. This time, it checked "yes" for defendant Martam, and wrote in $35,618.01; it checked "no" for the other two defendants.
Faced with this document, the district court entered judgment on the verdict, awarding Turyna $3,109.22 in compensatory damages, liquidated damages of $3,109.22 as required by the FLSA, and punitive damages against Martam in the amount of $35,618.01. The court then discharged the jury. A few days later, Martam filed a timely post-trial motion under Rule 59(e), seeking to amend the judgment on Count II to set aside the award of punitive damages. The court denied that motion, and this appeal followed.
Before this Court, Martam argues strenuously that there can be no award of compensatory or punitive damages to a plaintiff where the jury has found the issue of liability in favor of the defendant--an unexceptional enough proposition, if we could be sure that was what happened. In the alternative, Martam argues that in the absence of compensatory damages for the retaliation claim, it is error to award punitive damages, if perchance the jury meant to indicate that the discharge was wrongful under federal law but did not inflict any actual damages. Turyna retorts that the judgment was correctly entered because the verdict was, in substance, a general verdict accompanied by interrogatories under Rule 49(b) and thus the court was entitled to enter judgment in accordance with the specific answers notwithstanding the inconsistent general verdict. Turyna also argues that his judgment should stand because Martam waived its objections to inconsistencies in the verdict by its waiver of presence when the verdict was returned. Finally, Turyna disputes Martam's claim that punitive damages must rest on an award of compensatory damages.
The first, and as it turns out the last, question for us is whether this verdict is salvageable. There are only three logical possibilities: it is a general verdict for someone it is several special verdicts pursuant to Rule 49(a); or it is a general verdict accompanied by answers to interrogatories pursuant to Rule 49(b). As noted before, Martam argues that the verdict is "really" a general verdict for the defendant, accompanied by surplusage on the issue of damages that must be disregarded, while Turyna urges that we should treat it as a Rule 49(b) verdict in which the judge exercised his discretion to give primacy to the answers to the interrogatories. We consider each of the three logical possibilities in turn.
It seems most likely that the court intended to submit a general verdict form to this jury. General verdicts simply ask the jury to answer the question "who won," and if the winning party is entitled to a monetary award, to answer the question "how much." The verdict form reproduced in Appendix A does precisely those two things. Read one way, the jury gave inconsistent answers to those two questions: it said that Martam won (on Count II), but that it had to pay Turyna punitive damages. Read another way, the...
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