United States District Court, D. Connecticut
ORDER RE POST-TRIAL MOTIONS
Jeffrey Alker Meyer United States District Judge
Plaintiff
Darnell Humphrey sued four police officers-Renato Crea,
Anthony Tanganelli, Michael Silva, and Juan Rivera-alleging
that they violated his rights under federal and state law.
Doc. #13. The lawsuit stemmed from an encounter that Humphrey
had with the police officer defendants after he left a bar
late one night in Waterbury, Connecticut. Humphrey alleged
claims for false arrest, excessive force, intentional
infliction of emotional distress, and malicious prosecution.
The
case proceeded to trial in September 2018, and the jury
returned a verdict concluding that Humphrey had proven his
claims against Crea for the use of excessive force and for
the intentional infliction of emotional distress. Doc. #72.
The jury awarded compensatory damages of $38, 000 against
Crea as well as $30, 000 of punitive damages against Crea in
connection with the claim for intentional infliction of
emotional distress. The jury otherwise concluded that
Humphrey had not proven any of the remaining claims against
Crea or any of the claims against the three other police
officer defendants. The parties have filed post-trial
motions, and I will consider each motion in turn.
Humphrey's
motion to alter judgment or for new trial on
damages
Humphrey
moves to alter the judgment or to order a new trial on
damages. Doc. #77. According to Humphrey, the jury's
compensatory damages award was flawed because the jury
overlooked evidence of $121, 158.05 in medical-related bills
that Humphrey introduced into evidence. I note at the outset
that Humphrey's motion is complicated by his failure to
order trial transcripts and to cite to relevant portions of
the record to support his characterizations of what the
evidence shows. See Carlton v. C.O. Pearson, 384
F.Supp.3d 382 (W.D.N.Y. 2019) (“Generally speaking,
specific reliance upon the trial transcript is necessary to
demonstrate one's entitlement to relief on a Rule 59
motion based upon determinations made at trial.”).
Rule
59(a)(1)(A) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows
for the grant of a new trial after a jury verdict “for
any reason for which a new trial has heretofore been granted
in an action at law in federal court.” The Court may
not disturb the jury's verdict under Rule 59 unless it is
convinced that the jury reached a seriously erroneous result
or that its verdict was otherwise a miscarriage of justice.
See Ali v. Kipp, 891 F.3d 59, 64 (2d Cir. 2018).
When confronted with competing interpretations of the
evidence and the jury's findings, the Court must examine
the record to determine whether it is possible to harmonize
the jury's verdict with a reasonable view of the trial
evidence. Id. at 65-66. The Court gives a high
degree of deference to the jury's evaluation of witness
credibility; jury verdicts should only rarely be overturned.
See ING Glob. v. United Parcel Serv. Oasis Supply
Corp., 757 F.3d 92, 97-98 (2d Cir. 2014).[1]
As to
the jury's decision not to award Humphrey his medical
expenses, I am not convinced that the jury reached a
seriously erroneous result or that its verdict was otherwise
a miscarriage of justice. I reach this conclusion in part
because the trial evidence left it uncertain whether Crea was
responsible for the specific physical injuries to Humphrey
that are the basis for his claimed medical expenses. Although
Humphrey testified that Crea taunted him and then tried to
bring him to the ground, Humphrey said he was struck by more
than one officer and did not identify Crea as the person who
inflicted the most serious blow that he received: the impact
of a hard object to his eye that resulted in his
hospitalization and extensive medical bills. For his part,
Crea testified that he struck Humphrey in the head in
self-defense, but the jury could reasonably have doubted
whether it was Crea-rather than one of the other
defendants-who inflicted the specific injuries to Humphrey
that prompted the call for an ambulance, his subsequent
hospitalization, and follow-up medical treatment.
Even if
there were no doubt that it was Crea alone who inflicted the
blow(s) that resulted in the claimed medical expenses, the
jury's verdict against Crea for the use of excessive
force may have been based solely on Crea's acknowledgment
that he initially tackled Humphrey to the ground rather than
on any subsequent blows by Crea to Humphrey's body. The
jury may have concluded that any subsequent blows were not
excessive in light of evidence of Humphrey's inebriation
and resistance (or Crea's reasonable perception of such
resistance).
The
fact that the jury did not return a liability verdict against
any of the three other defendants does not undermine this
conclusion. If the jury was uncertain which of any of the
defendants inflicted a particular blow, then the jury
naturally could have concluded that Humphrey failed to carry
his burden of proof as to any particular defendant.
All in
all, it is possible to reasonably harmonize the trial
evidence with the jury's damages verdict that excluded an
award for medical expenses, and therefore it would be
inappropriate for me to grant a new trial. See Ali,
891 F.3d at 65 (affirming district court's denial of Rule
59 motion for new damages trial in case involving excessive
force claim against police; “[t]he jury heard two
different accounts of what transpired when Sergeant Kipp
placed Ali in the cell, ” and “[t]he jury was
free to conclude that the truth lay somewhere between these
two versions of the relevant events, ” such that the
jury could have concluded there was excessive force when the
defendant initially brought the plaintiff into the cell but
not excessive force as plaintiff claimed thereafter).
The
jury's verdict findings are consistent with the view that
the jury elected to award damages solely for actions other
than those leading to Humphrey's medical expenses. The
jury was instructed that any compensatory damages award may
include economic damages and non-economic damages. Doc. #71
at 22. As to economic damages, the jury was instructed
without objection that “[i]ncluded within your damages
calculation if you decide to award damages should be
compensation for any economic damages (such as loss of wages
or any other out-of-pocket expenses) suffered by Mr. Humphrey
if these damages were proximately caused by the unlawful
conduct of any of the defendants.” Ibid.
Notwithstanding the introduction into evidence of
Humphrey's many medical bills, the jury decided
not to award Humphrey any economic damages. Doc. #72
at 5.[2]
As to
non-economic damages, the jury was instructed that it may
“award compensation for any non-economic injuries of
emotional distress and suffering, humiliation, personal
indignity, fear, anxiety, and anguish solely to the extent
that such harm was the result of unlawful conduct.”
Doc. #71 at 22. The jury chose to award $38, 000 to Humphrey
in non-economic damages against Crea. Doc. #72 at 5.
Moreover,
the jury was not asked to allocate its award of compensatory
damages to any particular cause of action, and so there is no
way to know how much of its award of $38, 000 in non-economic
damages was specific to the claim for excessive force as
distinct from the claim for intentional infliction of
emotional distress. By contrast, as to the jury's further
award of $30, 000 in punitive damages against Crea, the jury
specifically assessed this award as to the claim for
intentional infliction of emotional distress only, rather
than to the claim for the use of excessive force. Doc. #72 at
6. Taken together, the jury's findings are consistent
with a possibility that the jury based its damages verdict
solely on Crea's taunting of Humphrey and tackling him to
the ground rather than Crea's infliction of particular
blows that caused medical expenses.
Humphrey
argues in the alternative that the Court should simply enter
an amended judgment to include $121, 158.05 in medical costs.
But the federal courts do not have “additur”
authority to revise a jury's verdict to increase an award
of damages. See Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 482
(1935); Elyse v. Bridgeside Inc., 367 Fed.Appx. 266,
267 (2d Cir. 2010) (collecting cases). Although Humphrey
argues that there is an exception to this rule that allows a
court to “simply adjust[] the jury award to account for
a discrete item that manifestly should have been part of the
damage calculations and as to whose amount there is no
dispute, ” Liriano v. Hobart Corp., 170 F.3d
264, 272 (2d Cir. 1999), for the reasons I have just
described the evidence is not “manifestly” clear
that Humphrey's medical bills should have been part of
the jury's verdict. See also Hugo Boss Fashions, Inc.
v. Fed. Ins. Co., 252 F.3d 608, 624 n.17 (2d Cir. 2001)
(“Additur is an appropriate remedy only ...