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Cowan v. Powell6/24/1993
Opinion
Defendant David Powell (Defendant) appeals from a jury verdict for Plaintiff Mary Cowan (Plaintiff) in which the jury awarded Plaintiff zero dollars in damages in a defamation case. Although Defendant raises four issues on appeal, he fails to indicate in his brief-in-chief how two of these issues were preserved below. Thus, we do not address them. See SCRA 1986, 12-213(A)(3) (Repl.1992) (brief-in-chief required to contain argument stating how each issue was preserved below). We consolidate the remaining two issues and rephrase them as one issue -- whether a verdict for Plaintiff but awarding Plaintiff no damages is, as a matter of law, a verdict for Defendant. The answer to this question determines which party was the prevailing party and therefore entitled to an
award of costs in the trial court. We hold that, under the two-step process established for defamation suits under New Mexico's uniform jury instructions, see SCRA 1986, 13-1002 and 13-1010 (Repl.1991), the jury's verdict was one in favor of Plaintiff and was not inconsistent. We thus conclude that the trial court did not err in refusing to grant Defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and in awarding costs to Plaintiff.
FACTS
Plaintiff, an administrator at Western New Mexico University (University), sued Defendant, a University professor, for defamation. Among other instructions, SCRA 13-1002 and SCRA 13-1010 were given to the jury. Additionally, two verdict forms were submitted to the jury. One stated, "We find for the Plaintiff in the sum of $___ for actual damages and award $___ for punitive damages." The other verdict stated, "We find for Defendant Powell." The jury verdict entered stated, "We find for the Plaintiff in the sum of $0 for actual damages and award $0 for punitive damages. Signed, Jim Matthews, Foreman."
After the jury was excused, Defendant moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, requesting the trial court to enter judgment for Defendant. The trial court denied the motion and rendered a judgment on the verdict, awarding Plaintiff $1,620.10 as costs.
Discussion
Generally, when a jury verdict is contradictory or confusing, the trial court has a duty to point out the inconsistency to the jury and send the verdict back with appropriate instructions to agree on the correct form of a verdict. See ; . If the jury fails to reach an agreement on the verdict, the appropriate remedy is to grant a new trial. . This procedure was not followed in this case. Instead, Defendant moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, requesting the trial court to enter judgment for Defendant. Defendant argues on appeal, as he did in the trial court, that, as a matter of law, the jury verdict was essentially a verdict for Defendant because it indicated that Plaintiff failed to prove damages.
SCRA 13-1002(B), which outlines the various elements of a cause of action for defamation, states in part:
To establish the claim of defamation on the part of defendant, the plaintiff has the burden of proving each of the following contentions:
(8) The communication proximately caused actual injury to plaintiff's reputation . . . .
SCRA 13-1010 states in part:
If you should decide in favor of the plaintiff on the question of liability, you must then fix the amount of money which will reasonably and fairly compensate plaintiff for the actual injury proximately caused by the defamatory commun
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