Stokes v. Muschinske, No. B280116 (D2d8 Apr. 8, 2019)
Juror #11 is the CEO of a company. During voir dire, he says doesn’t really want to be on a jury, because he has a big problem with the time commitment. But he also acknowledges that’s not like going to get him bounced for cause. Some time after Juror #11’s individual questioning was over, Plaintiff’s lawyer somewhat vaguely asked if any of the new jurors had been sued before. Juror #11 didn’t chime up.
Eventually a jury was empaneled. Juror #11 became the foreman. Notwithstanding Defendants’ concession of liability, plaintiffs got much much less damages than their demand.
It turns out, however, that Juror #11 had been sued, twice. Both cases were years before the voir dire. In one, the record didn’t reflect that Juror #11 had ever been served. In the other, it was somewhat ambiguous whether Juror #11 was ever even a party, as opposed to an agent for service. He was voluntarily dismissed four months later. Plaintiffs moved for new trial, on the grounds that Juror #11’s failure to disclose these lawsuits was juror misconduct. The trial court denied the motion, finding no misconduct.
The Court of Appeal affirms. Intentionally concealing material information during voir dire is a form of juror misconduct. But to merit a new trial, the concealment must be intentional and it must reveal a bias that would constitute good cause for removal.
Here, the record supports the trial court’s finding that the standard wasn’t met. Juror #11 wasn’t directly asked if he had ever been sued. And it wasn’t completely clear whether the general question to the “new jurors” about prior lawsuits was directed at him. Moreover, the lawsuits were a long a time ago and not particularly consequential given that both were dismissed early. So it’s not unreasonable that the juror might not have remembered them. Nor was there evidence that Juror #11 wanted to smuggle his way onto the jury. Indeed, the evidence showed that he did not really want to serve.
Affirmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment