Civ Pro Outline
Fall 2005 – Ed Cooper
Civil Procedure
Part One
Rules
Rule 56 Summary Judgment
Rule 51 Instructions to Jury; Objections; Preserving a Claim of Error
Rule 61 Harmless Error
Rule 48 Number of Jurors; Participation in Verdict
Rule 49 Special Verdict and Interrogatories
Rule 52 Findings by the Court; Judgment on Partial Findings
Rule 50 Judgment as a Matter of Law in Jury Trials; Alternative Motion for New Trial; Conditional Rulings
Rule 59 New Trials; Amendment of Judgments
Topics Covered in Part One
I. Factual Uncertainty
what do we really have on this topic?
II. Juries’ Fact Input
look at examples in course pack
Texas Employers’ Insurance Association v. Price
A. Js can’t testify to impeach a verdict
Mansfield Rule
Iowa Rule
o
o
jurors can’t testify about intrinsic information / what goes on in the minds of individual jurorsjurors can testify about extrinsic / “overt acts” that can be proved (including improper practices, like quotient or gambling verdicts)
Federal Evidence Rule 606(b)
o
o
o
o
Coop points out ambiguity that the rule refers to the whole jury – does this apply equally to influence on just one juror?question is still whether the information is “extraneous” – i.e., whether it’s outside the knowledge jurors usually have vs. specialized info that’s like expert testimonybut jurors may testify on whether “extraneous prejudicial information” was improperly brought to bear on jury – can include intervention of outside parties, through inadvertent incidents, or one juror’s revelation of specialized knowledge (as in Texas Employers’ Insurance Assoc.) – but generally doesn’t include things like quotient and gambling verdictsno evidence regardingjurors’ mental processes
Why restrict jury testimony on verdict process?
o
o
o
o
to preserve sanctity of verdict and jury room and idea of the jury process altogetherto prevent prolonged litigation (litigating the litigation, “satellite litigation”)to protect jurors from fraud and harassment by litigantsstability of verdicts
: (most jurisdictions now)
(traditional rule): affidavits of jurors can never be used to impeach verdict
II. Question of Fact vs. Question of Law
III. Jury Instructions (Rule 51)
a party must request every instruction he wants, and object to everything the judge does he doesn’t want (including objecting to the judge denying the requested instruction – unless he does so expressly, and on record), in order to raise it on appeal later
in a case with multiple parties on either side, each side needs to object, because the party bringing the appeal must have independently objected
C is allowed to require parties to submit J instruction requests before trial even begins; new stuff can be added after close of evidence via Rule 51(a)(2)(A)
C can give J instructions either before or after closing arguments (but usually should be after)
C must tell parties what the final instructions will be before the close of argument
Kennedy v. Southern CA Edison Co
Alexander v. Kramer Bros
must revisit Course Pack 1, pp. 25-27
IV. Judicial Control of the Jury
V. Error
Harmless à Preserved Claim of Error à Plain Error
(Rule 61) (Rule 51)
harmless error:
plain error:
o
4 dimensions
§
§
§
§
importance to other caseshigh institutional costaffecting substantial rightsobviousness
preserved claim of error in J instruction (Rule 51)
: see Part III, above) even though there’s no request (or objection), if it’s material and a really obvious mistake, it can be grounds for a retrialunder Rule 61, if the C fucks up something procedural, but the error is harmless, it’s not grounds for a new trial
VI. Form of Verdict (Rule 49)
General Verdict
* advantages of Rule 49 verdict over a GV
instructions
illumination
protecting the law
avoidance
unanimity
res judicata
(leaves more law-application issues to judge à res judicata applies, as opposed to regular closed-door jury decisions, to which res judicata doesn’t apply)(more difficult / true unanimity necessary – maybe a weakness, in some Cs’ eyes) (forecloses some tricky issues of law, if J can specifically say “no, D was definitely not N in doing thing A.”) (makes sure law is properly applied to findings of fact) (tells us what the J did / how they reached their V)
*
*
Special Verdict (Rule 49(a))
Rule 49 questions/inter
element, or can C reject entirely because instruction itself is faulty? à C must get a clue, even from a flawed proposed J instruction, if the issue is material, and especially if it’s a newly implemented legal issue) (trucks collide, 2 different stories of what happened; C misinstructed J on CN, but D’s only objection at the time was that he “took exception” in chambers à C said that’s not substantial enough to qualify as an objection for the purposes of Rule 51) (Rule 61, harmless error, also might have worked here)
no clear line, other than that we say “fact” when we mean “jury” and “law” when we mean “judge”
Davis v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins.Co.
another ex of a J-interpreted K: a contract of adhesion, where J is best situated to know what the adhered party thought/intended when signing
but if contract is unambiguous (intent is clear), interpretation of it is a question of law, for the C
Alderman v. Baltimore & Ohio
if an issue is “law,” it binds future cases (res judicata – issue preclusion); if it’s “fact,” it’s not binding on anyone
(P was injured due to faulty rails while riding on a free pass; C determines as a matter of law that P will be unable to gather enough evidence to prove that D behaved recklessly and wantonly, the standard for free-pass injuries à why was this a question of law?) (life insurance only pays if P, who died of heroine o/d, died of “accident”; D argues that heroine addiction is a “disease” à interpretation of contract (what parties “intended”) is a question of fact for the J)
, Friedenthal, et. al, 9th edition(juror introduces evidence about whether P can ever work for union companies again à juror can’t introduce “his own personal experience as original evidence of material facts”)
