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Murchison v. Lyndon Property Ins. Co.12/30/2004
e jury awarded damages and medical expenses only with respect to Mr. Murchison's medical therapy through January 26, 2000, which represents his last visit with Dr Bernauer in reference to his normal October 1999 MRI. The award did not account for medical expenses incurred thereafter, suggesting that the jury agreed that the range of damages related to the accident ended in January of 2000. The trial court, however, disagreed with this assessment, stating in its oral reasons for judgment only that "the jurors could not have reached the conclusion they reached." The trial court believed that Mr. Murchison incurred the medical bills "in good faith," and increased the jury's award of medical expenses to include the herniated disk at C3-4 and its related treatment. The JNOV also increased the award for loss of enjoyment of life, future medical expenses, and pain and suffering.
The standard for reviewing a trial court's decision to grant JNOV on the issue of damages is whether "reasonable men in the exercise of impartial judgment could differ as to the fact that the jury award was either abusively high or abusively low. If the answer is in the affirmative, then the trial court erred in granting the JNOV, and the jury's damage award should be reinstated. f the answer is in the negative, then the trial court properly granted the JNOV."
Manville v. Citizen, 96-861, p. 6 (La.App. 3 Cir. 2/5/97), 689 So.2d 578, 584. In Morgan v. Belanger, 633 So.2d 173 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1993), the appellate court declined to find the trial court erred in refusing to grant a JNOV. Although the trial court stated it disagreed with the jury's assessment of damages, and believed the jury disregarded the evidence, the court nevertheless conceded that the figures were within a reasonable range. The trial court "can make no credibility determinations, nor draw inferences therefrom." Id. at 175. The first circuit concluded that " JNOV can be granted only where the trial court finds that reasonable minds could not reach a contrary verdict." Id.
In Simoneaux v. Amoco Production Co., 02-1050 (La.App. 1 Cir. 2003), 860 So.2d 560, writ denied, 04-1 (La. 3/26/04), 871 So.2d 348, the defendants argued that, in granting a JNOV, the trial court "ignored the jury's acceptance of the defense witnesses' testimony, improperly substituted own judgment for that of the jury, [made its] own credibility determinations" and increased the damages award from $375,000.00 to $12,000,000.00. The appellate court agreed, citing the rule that, in order to supersede properly the jury's determination of damages, the trial court must find that a reasonable jury could not have made the award. In Simoneaux, the jury heard substantial evidence on hazardous contamination of various sites, and the necessary costs of cleanup. The jury weighed the evidence and found the defense case credible. Because a reasonable jury could have made the damages assessment the Simoneaux jury made, "the judge was not empowered to substitute his own evaluation of the evidence to overturn the damages award." Id.
Appellate courts have considered the presence of conflicting expert testimony as a factor in assessing a trial court's decision to grant a JNOV. For instance, in VaSalle v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 01-462 (La. 11/28/01), 801 So.2d 331, several physicians offered conflicting testimony about the severity of the plaintiff's injuries and the causal relationship of her later physical condition to the injury that was the subject of the lawsuit. The jury assigned some damages, but their limited award indicated they chose an award that would reflect only the damages clearly caused by the relevant injury. The supreme court held that the decision was one a reasonab
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