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Redmond v. Socha9/29/2004
ed of the Plaintiff, then your verdict should be for the Defendant on the counterclaim and you will not reduce the Defendant's damages.
If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that the Defendant has proved all the propositions required of the Defendant and that the Plaintiff has proved both of the propositions required of the Plaintiff, and if you find that the Defendant's contributory negligence was greater than 50% of the total proximate cause of the injury or damage for which recovery is sought, then your verdict should be for the Plaintiff on the Defendant's counterclaim.
Finally, if you find from your consideration of all the evidence, that the Defendant has proved all the propositions required of the Defendant and that the Plaintiff has proved both of the propositions required of the Plaintiff, and if you find that the Defendant's contributory negligence was 50% or less of the total proximate cause of the injury or damage for which recovery is sought, then your verdict should be for the Defendant on the counterclaim and you will reduce the Defendant's damages in the manner stated to you in these instructions."
Following its deliberations, the jury returned verdicts in favor of the defendant on the plaintiff's complaint and in favor of the plaintiff on the defendant's counterclaim. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a post-trial motion, requesting that the trial court enter a judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, grant the parties a new trial on the issue of damages only or a new trial on all issues.
The trial court granted the plaintiff's post-trial motion, set aside the jury's verdicts, and ordered a new trial. In so doing, the trial court found that the verdicts were inconsistent and against the manifest weight of the evidence, stating:
"I think that in this closed universe of facts which were elicited in this trial, there has to be a logical result. And the jury has to make a choice. It's not possible -- not logically possible to find that an accident occurred without being anyone's fault." Thereafter, the defendant filed a timely petition for leave to appeal pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 306(a)(1) (166 Ill. 2d R. 306(a)(1)), which this court granted.
In urging reversal of the trial court's order granting a new trial, the defendant argues that the jury's verdicts were not against the manifest weight of the evidence or inconsistent. Her arguments seem to rest on the proposition that the jury could have found that "each party failed as to its required burden of proof" and, therefore, properly found in her favor on the plaintiff's complaint and in favor of the plaintiff on her counterclaim. The plaintiff contends that, in the absence of any evidence of an intervening cause of the collision, either the plaintiff or the defendant must have been negligent. As a consequence, he argues that the jury's verdicts were inconsistent and the trial court properly set the verdicts aside and ordered a new trial. We agree with the plaintiff.
In ruling on a motion for a new trial, the court weighs the evidence and sets aside the verdict and orders a new trial if the verdict is against the manifest weight of the evidence. Mizowek v. DeFranco, 64 Ill. 2d 303, 310, 356 N.E.2d 32 (1976). A verdict is against the manifest weight of the evidence when an opposite conclusion is clearly evident or in circumstances where the jury's findings are unreasonable, arbitrary, or not based upon any of the evidence. Maple v. Gustafson, 151 Ill. 2d 445, 454, 603 N.E.2d 508 (1992). A trial court's ruling on a motion for a new trial will not be overturned on appeal unless it amounts to an abuse of discretion. Maple, 151 Il
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