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Holly v. Huntsville Hospital9/16/2005
on the Hollys' argument that the juror, under the circumstances here presented, was not obliged to respond to the question.
C.
As noted above, " he proper inquiry on a motion for a new trial based on improper or nonexistent responses to voir dire questions is whether the response, or the lack of response, resulted in probable prejudice to the movant." Union Mortgage Co., 595 So. 2d at 1342. "The question of prejudice is a determination to be made within the trial court's discretion." Colbert County-Northwest Alabama Healthcare Auth. v. Nix, 678 So. 2d 719, 722 (Ala. 1995). The Hollys argue that the trial court exceeded its discretion in determining that probable prejudice resulted from the juror's failure to disclose in response to a voir dire question that he had had disputes with Huntsville Hospital.
"Some of the factors that this Court has approved for using to determine whether there was probable prejudice include: 'temporal remoteness of the matter inquired about, the ambiguity of the question propounded, the prospective juror's inadvertence or willfulness in falsifying or failing to answer, the failure of the juror to recollect, and the materiality of the matter inquired about.' Freeman [v. Hall], 286 Ala. at 167, 238 So. 2d at 336 [(1970)]."
Union Mortgage Co., 595 So. 2d at 1342-43.
As far as the "temporal remoteness of the matter inquired about," the defendants point out that collection attempts on the juror's account with Huntsville Hospital began five years before the trial in the medical-malpractice action and were continuing at the time of trial. As for the second consideration, the ambiguous nature of the question, the defendants contend that the question propounded to the prospective jurors was not so ambiguous as to excuse the juror's failure to respond. As noted, defense counsel asked if any of the jurors had "a dispute with Huntsville Hospital about anything, a bill, a statement or anything about it." We agree with the defendants that the trial court acted within its discretion in determining that the question was not so ambiguous and that the billing dispute was not so temporally remote as to excuse the juror's failure to respond. Cf. Conference America, Inc., supra.
The third factor that may be considered in determining whether a juror's failure to answer a voir dire question probably resulted in prejudice is the juror's inadvertence or willfulness in falsifying or failing to answer. The Hollys contend that because the meaning of "dispute" is open to interpretation, and because the juror did not consider his dealings with Huntsville Hospital to constitute a "dispute," the juror did not willfully mislead the defendants by effectively answering the question in the negative.
The Hollys concede that the juror admitted receiving collection letters from Huntsville Hospital. They therefore cannot argue that the juror was unaware of Huntsville Hospital's attempts to collect on the juror's unpaid accounts and that therefore the juror inadvertently failed to disclose the dispute during voir dire. Further, because the dispute between the juror and Huntsville Hospital was ongoing at the time of the trial in the medical-malpractice action, and because we agree with the defendants that the trial court acted within its discretion in determining that the question was not so ambiguous as to excuse the juror's failure to respond, we also agree that the trial court acted within its discretion by rejecting mere inadvertence as an explanation for the juror's failure to answer and concluding that the juror did not simply fail to recollect the existence of the dispute or in concluding that the juror acted willfully in failing
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