Facts
In Cruz v. Patel, Eduardo Cruz filed a negligence action against Girish Patel after the two were involved in a car accident. Before deliberations, the jury was instructed to determine if the Plaintiff was entitled to recover, without making any reductions based on the Plaintiff’s negligence. The jury was also instructed to apportion fault between the Plaintiff and the Defendant.
The jury found for the Plaintiff and awarded $44,842.47 in past medical expenses and $6,000 in non-economic damages. However, in apportioning fault between the parties, the jury assessed 65% of the fault to the Plaintiff and the other 35% to the Defendant. Because the Plaintiff’s fault equaled or exceeded 50%, the judge entered judgment in favor of the Defendant.
Arguing that the verdict was void because it was contradictory in finding for him while also finding that he was 65% at fault, Plaintiff filed a motion for a new trial. The trial court denied the motion, determining that the verdict was not inconsistent, as it had specifically instructed the jury not to make any damages reductions due to negligence on the part of the Plaintiff. Plaintiff appealed, continuing to argue that the verdict was void as a contradictory verdict.
Issue and Holding
The issue in this case was: Was the trial court’s verdict in favor of the Defendant void in light of the jury’s finding for the Plaintiff and awarding him damages, while at the same time apportioning him 65% of the fault?
The court found that, no, the verdict was not contradictory.
Reasoning
First, the court looked first at how Georgia considers jury verdicts in the first place. More specifically, the court looked to O.C.G.A. § 9-12-4, which states that verdicts “shall have a reasonable intendment and shall receive a reasonable construction,” and they “shall not be avoided unless from necessity.” To connect this statute to the case at hand, the court looked to a Georgia Supreme Court opinion, which stated the following: “the presumptions are in favor of the validity of verdicts…Even if the verdict is ambiguous and susceptible of two constructions, one of which would uphold it and one of which would defeat it, that which would uphold it would be applied.” Anthony v. Gator Cochran Constr., 288 Ga. 79 (2010). Put simply, if a seemingly contradictory verdict can be reasonably construed in a way that would uphold that verdict, that is the interpretation that a court should apply.
Next, the court looked at Georgia’s rule for comparative negligence. O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33(g) bars a Plaintiff from recovering if he is found to be 50% or more at fault. The court determined that, based on the jury instructions given by the trial court judge, it was apparent that the jury understood that the Plaintiff would not recover were he found to be more than 50% at fault.
In this case, the trial court had instructed the jury (1) that if it determined the Plaintiff was at fault to any degree, it should not reduce the damages, and (2) if the jury found the Plaintiff was in any way negligent, the trial court would reduce the damages by the percentage of negligence attributed to him. The trial court further instructed the jury that the Plaintiff would not be entitled to damages if his negligence was at least equal to the Defendant’s. Based on these instructions, the Court of Appeals determined that the verdict was not contradictory because the jury did just what it was instructed to do: It apportioned fault without any reduction of damages, leaving that job to the trial judge.
Finally, the Court of Appeals noted that a verdict with an erroneous or illegal element may be corrected without voiding the verdict as a whole. The court borrowed from both case law and statute in explaining that if part of a verdict is illegal, a court can keep the verdict as valid if “the illegal part can be determined and is separable from the rest.” Fletcher v. C.W. Matthews Contracting Co., 322 Ga. App. 751, 757 (2013); see also O.C.G.A. § 9-12-8. The Court of Appeals explained that, in this case, the portion of the verdict that awarded Plaintiff damages was properly struck by the trial court, while the apportionment of fault was properly accepted. The allocation of fault was not contradictory to the rest of the verdict.
Conclusion
Cruz reinforces the law regarding the presumption that verdicts are valid. The standard of striking a verdict as contradictory is a high one. If a piece of a civil verdict does not align with the overall sentiment of the verdict, the court is allowed to sever that piece. Fault apportionment is a prime example of such a situation.
This case also provides an example of how Georgia’s status as a comparative negligence state impacts a court’s interpretation of a verdict when fault apportionment is part of it. When a jury is instructed to determine liability and damages, along with being asked to apportion fault, their answer to the apportionment question is important and will control.
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Citation: Cruz v. Patel, 367 Ga.App. 431 (2023)
