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Brousseau v. Daykin Electric Corp.6/7/2002
UNPUBLISHED
Plaintiff appeals as of right from the trial court's order effectuating the jury verdict entered against defendant and reducing plaintiff's award of future economic damages to present value. Defendant cross-appeals as of right, challenging the trial court's decisions to deny its motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), new trial, directed verdict, and remittitur, and the granting of plaintiff's motion for costs and attorney fees. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
I.
Plaintiff argues that the trial court committed reversible error when it reduced the jury verdict to present value after it had already instructed the jury to do so, effectively reducing the verdict twice. We disagree. This issue involves a question of statutory interpretation, which this Court reviews de novo. Cheron, Inc v Don Jones, Inc, 244 Mich App 212, 215-216; 625 NW2d 93 (2000).
"The primary goal of judicial interpretation of statutes is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the Legislature." Kokx v Bylenga, 241 Mich App 655, 661; 617 NW2d 368 (2000). The first step in determining intent is to review the specific language of the statute itself. In re MCI Telecommunications Complaint, 460 Mich 396, 411; 596 NW2d 164 (1999). If the plain and ordinary meaning of the language is clear and the statute is unambiguous on its face, the Legislature is presumed to have intended the meaning expressed, and judicial construction is neither required nor permitted. Id.
MCL 600.6306 states in pertinent part:
(1) After a verdict rendered by a trier of fact in favor of a plaintiff, an order of judgment shall be entered by the court. Subject to section 2959, the order of judgment shall be entered against each defendant, including a third-party defendant, in the following order and in the following judgment amounts:
(c) All future economic damages . . . reduced to gross present cash value. [MCL 600.6306(1)(c) (footnotes omitted).]
"Before 1986, under the common law, the obligation to perform the reduction of future damages to present cash value in personal injury actions was the obligation of the jury." Nation v WDE Electric Co, 454 Mich 489, 492; 563 NW2d 233 (1997). However, MCL 600.6306 transferred the obligation to perform that calculation to the trial judge. Id. The clear and unambiguous language of the statute mandates that the trial court shall reduce any future economic damages to gross present value when entering an order of judgment in favor of a plaintiff. Thus, the trial court in this case properly reduced plaintiff's award of future economic damages to present value when it entered the order of judgment.
Furthermore, plaintiff's claim that there is a presumption that juries follow the instructions of the court, and therefore, the jury's award included a reduction to present value, has been overcome by the facts in the record. We agree with defendant that it is clear from the record and the verdict form that the jury's award of future economic damages did not include a reduction to present value. Rather, the jury returned an award for future economic damages that was requested by plaintiff, $55,000 the first year and $30,000 for every year after that for the rest of plaintiff's working life as determined by the jury. Thus, the jury simply adopted the figures as requested by plaintiff when returning a verdict without making any calculations for present cash value, which would have been evidenced by a different calculated amount reduced for each year under the formula. Accordingly, we find no error in the trial court's decision to reduce plaintiff's award for future economic damages to present
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