Grant v. Hall

LILLIE, J. Sam and Martha Evelyn Grant, husband and wife, filed an action for damages for personal injuries arising out of an automobile collision. A jury found against defendants and in favor of plaintiff Sam Grant for $450 and Martha Evelyn Grant for $1,525. Thereafter plaintiffs moved for a new trial; Sam’s motion was denied but Martha was granted a new trial. Defendants appeal from the order.

While the minute order of December 1, 1967, recites that, the motion for new trial “is granted as to plaintiff Evelyn Grant on the grounds of accident or surprise, which ordinary prudence could not have guarded against, and denied on the grounds of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict,” the court below did not specify its reasons for granting the new trial upon the grounds stated. Appellants direct [626]our attention to the requirement under section 657, Code of Civil Procedure, as amended,1 that the court specify its reasons within 10 days after ordering a new trial, and assert that since this is mandatory and jurisdictional and the court failed to specify its reasons for granting Martha a new trial, the order must be reversed. This contention has been decided adversely by the Supreme Court in Mercer v. Perez, 68 Cal.2d 104 [65 Cal.Rptr. 315, 436 P.2d 315], and Treber v. Superior Court, 68 Cal.2d 128 [65 Cal.Rptr. 330, 436 P.2d 330], as well as in numerous other cases in which this court has had occasion to interpret section 657, Code of Civil Procedure, as amended in 1965. (Hayes v. Long Beach Banana Distributors, Inc., 270 Cal.App.2d 658, 661 [76 Cal.Rptr. 260]; San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit Dist. v. McKeegan, 265 Cal.App.2d 263, 269 [71 Cal.Rptr. 204]; Funderburk v. General Tel. Co., 262 Cal.App.2d 869, 873 [69 Cal.Rptr. 275]; Brooks v. Harootunian, 261 Cal.App.2d 680, 682 [68 Cal.Rptr. 374]; Tagney v. Hoy, 260 Cal.App.2d 372, 374 [67 Cal.Rptr. 261]; Kincaid v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 259 Cal.App.2d 733, [627737] [66 Cal.Rptr. 915] ; Kramer v. Boynton, 258 Cal.App.2d 171,173 [65 Cal.Rptr. 669].)

The order granting a new trial in Mercer v. Perez, 68 Cal.2d 104 [65 Cal.Rptr. 315, 436 P.2d 315], was construed to adequately state the ground of insufficiency of the evidence; however, the trial court failed to specify its reasons. The Supreme Court pointed up the dual statutory intent underlying the requirement of section 657, Code of Civil Procedure, that the court shall specify its [‘reason or reasons for granting the new trial upon each ground stated”—to encourage careful deliberation by trial courts before ordering new trials and to promote a more meaningful appellate review of such orders—and that the procedural steps prescribed by law for making and determining a motion for new trial are mandatory and must be strictly followed; and held that while any attempt by the trial court to specify its reasons, after a 10-day period is an exercise of power in excess of its jurisdiction, its complete failure to specify its reasons for granting a new trial on the ground specified in the order is not jurisdictional and does not render the order defective or void. “. . . [T]he 1965 amendments to section 657 expressly extend the same penalty to the failure to specify reasons for granting a new trial on the ground of insufficiency as the former law attached to the failure to specify insufficiency as the basis of the ruling: i.e., a conclusive presumption excluding that ground from appellate review.” (P. 120.) Thus, the court concluded, “By omitting to act in that connection a court does not render its new trial order void, it merely restricts the scope of appellate review to the other grounds, if any, listed in the motion; but a purported specification of grounds or reasons made, after the 10-day statute of limitations has run is an act in excess of jurisdiction, and therefore void to that extent. ’ ’ (P. 121.)