The Mind of a Jury

Guernsey v. City of Salinas, No. H043283 (D6 Dec. 17, 2018)

The Court of Appeal reverses and remands a defense verdict for one defendant because some jury instructions suggested a government immunity that wasn’t really in play. 

To show prejudice, plaintiff submitted a bunch of juror affidavits, which suggested that the jury relied on the instruction in answering “no” on two liability questions and that they “agreed” the instruction precluded liability. The Court holds that those statements are inadmissible under Evidence Code § 1150, which bars evidence of jurors’ subjective mental impressions. 

In doing so, it rejects a statement in dicta in Harb v. City of Bakersfield, 233 Cal. App. 4th 606 (2015), which suggested in passing that evidence of a jury’s “verbal agreement” was objective enough to admit under § 1150. As the Court explains, the statements of jurors during deliberation are admissible under § 1150 only when the statements themselves are juror misconduct. (E.g., an admission that the juror consulted an outside attorney for advice on the law.)  

The Court finds prejudice nonetheless. It finds persuasive (and admissible) the fact that the jury had made written annotations on its copy of the incorrect instruction, as well as on the verdict form. Moreover, some of the questions asked by the jury suggested confusion, and the evidence overall suggested that, if the jury weren’t confused about the immunity, it would have found the defendant liable.

Reversed.