Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
The following blog entry is written from a defendant’s position after a jury trial verdict for plaintiff. Reviewing this kind of briefing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in a personal injury case present such issues to the court.
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this auto accident/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
Initially, it is important to note that the statute establishes exactly what the court must find in order to determine that an award of damages is excessive. It must find, based on the evidence presented at trial, that the jury’s verdict–the amount of damages–was unreasonable and therefore should have been different. Unlike a court of appeal sitting in review of an order denying a motion for new trial, the trial court need not find that the award is so large that it must necessarily have resulted from “passion or prejudice” on the part of the jury. The Supreme Court explained the reason for this distinction in Seffert v. Los Angeles Transit Lines (1961) 56 Cal.2d 498:
The powers and duties of a trial judge in ruling on a motion for new trial and of an appellate court on an appeal from a judgment are very different when the question of an excessive award of damages arises. The trial judge sits as a thirteenth juror with the power to weigh the evidence and judge the credibility of the witnesses. If he believes the damages awarded by the jury to be excessive and the question is presented it becomes his duty to reduce them. When the question is raised his denial of a motion for new trial is an indication that he approves the amount of the award. An appellate court has no such powers. It cannot weigh the evidence and pass on the credibility of the witnesses as a juror does. To hold an award excessive it must be so large as to indicate passion or prejudice on the part of the jurors. (Id. at p. 507, quoting Holmes v. Southern California Edison Co. (1947) 78 Cal.App.2d 43, 51.)
Notably, prior to 1967, section 657 did state that a trial court must find that an award of damages resulted from passion or prejudice before the court could order a new trial based on excessive damages. (Since 1967, the statute has read exactly as quoted above.) In the comments accompanying the 1967 statutory revision, the legislature makes it clear that the revised provision enables a trial court to vacate the judgment when it finds that the damages are clearly excessive based solely on a reasonableness standard–and that the court need not find that the award was motivated by passion or prejudice:
[T]he qualifying language in subdivision 5 and in the last paragraph that purports to limit the ground of excessive damages to an award influenced by passion or prejudice is eliminated as unnecessary. In the past, the basis for granting a new trial because of excessive damages has been that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, i.e., the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict or other decision ; neither passion nor prejudice had to be shown. [Citations.] Thus, the revisions of Section 657 continue the power of the trial judge to grant a new trial when, after weighing the evidence, he is convinced from the entire record, including reasonable inferences therefrom, that the award of damages is clearly excessive. (1967 Senate Legis. Committee Comment to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. sec. 657.) (See Part 4 of 14.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.