Buhl v. Wood Truck Lines

WARD, J.

This is an appeal by plaintiffs from an order granting a new trial to defendants Wood Truck Lines, Inc. (sued herein as The Wood Trucking Lines, Inc., a corporation), and Jack Cole after verdict of a jury in plaintiffs’ favor.

The parties to the appeal have stipulated and agreed that the order granting a new trial was based solely upon the ground of misconduct of the jury, in that it reached its verdict by resort to chance, and further stipulated that the respondents do not attempt to justify the order upon any other ground.

The defendants in support of their motion for a new trial presented affidavits of five members of the jury “that all of the jurors who joined in the verdict in the said cause voted for the verdict in favor of the plaintiffs in an amount to be calculated by an average of the sums which were voted by all the jurors in said cause; that before arriving at the sum to be allowed the said plaintiffs, the jurors agreed that the amount so written down on said piece of paper by each juror would be added together and would then be divided by twelve and that the average was to be the amount of the verdict; that in determining the amount of said verdict in favor of plaintiffs Mary A. Buhl and Arthur Buhl, each of the jurors who joined in the verdict in said cause wrote on a piece of paper the amount which he or she desired to award the said plaintiffs and the total of said sums was then divided by twelve, and it.was by this method that the amount of the verdict was reached; ...”

[544]

In opposition to the motion plaintiffs presented the affidavits of eight members of the jury, including those of two who made the foregoing affidavit. Each deposed and said that “it was suggested by one of the jurors, as a basis for reaching an agreement if possible, that each juror write down the amount that he favored and that these sums be added together and divided by the number participating; this was done; the affiant cannot now remember the exact amount thus resulting, but affiant recalls that it was forty-four odd hundred dollars; that thereafter affiant proposed the sum of $4000.00 as fair and equitable; that a vote was taken on the sum of $4000.00 and the vote of the jury was eleven affirming and one dissenting. This was the method by which the verdicts were arrived at in the Buhl cases.”