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Redmond v. Socha10/6/2005
same essential matter." 75B Am. Jur. 2d Trial ยง1805, at 652 (1992). In the present case, Redmond identifies no such essential matter that the jury in this case found to be proven in one action but not in the other. The same fact or element was not found in one verdict but not the other as would have been the case if the jury had found in favor of both plaintiff and counterplaintiff and found the same party 25% at fault in one verdict but 75% liable in the other. Such verdicts would, indeed, be legally inconsistent because the same fact would have been found both to exist and not to exist.
Redmond implicitly acknowledged that his argument was based on the application of logic to a hypothetical closed set of facts, not on the application of law to the actual evidence presented at trial. In his motion for judgment n.o.v., he stated: "In apportioning 100% of the fault for this collision, it is impossible for both Plaintiff and Defendant to be more than 50% at fault. Therefore, the only logical conclusion from the jury's verdict is that the jury felt both parties were equally at fault." (Emphasis added.) The trial court also focused on logic, rather than law, when stating that "in the 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 logically possible to find that an accident occurred without being anyone's fault." (Emphases added.)
There is, of course, no authority for the proposition that a verdict or verdicts in a civil case must be without any conceivable flaw in logic, only that they must be legally consistent. Tedeschi, 282 Ill. App. 3d at 448-49. The verdicts in the present case may have been logically inconsistent in the abstract, that is, in the sense that when two parties are involved in an accident that occurs in the absence of any intervening cause, the accident must have been caused by the negligence of either or both. The verdicts are not, however, legally inconsistent because the jury did not find some essential matter proven in one claim but not proven in the other. Instead, the jury, dealing with the evidence presented rather than with abstract concepts, found neither claim proven.
We conclude that the trial court erred by granting a new trial on the basis that the jury verdicts were legally inconsistent. We note, however, that Redmond's posttrial motion also sought a new trial on the basis that the verdicts were against the manifest weight of the evidence. This argument does not rest on a claim that the verdicts are legally inconsistent with each other, but rather stands on the assertion that they are not supported by the evidence presented at trial.
ORDER GRANTING NEW TRIAL
Thus, the question still remains whether a new trial is justified on the basis that the verdicts were against the manifest weight of the evidence. " `A verdict is against the manifest weight of the evidence where the opposite conclusion is clearly evident or where the findings of the jury are unreasonable, arbitrary and not based upon any of the evidence.' " Maple, 151 Ill. 2d at 454, quoting Villa v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 202 Ill. App. 3d 1082, 1089 (1990). In general, the determination of whether a new trial should be granted rests within the sound discretion of the trial court, whose ruling will not be reversed unless it reflects an abuse of that discretion. Maple, 151 Ill. 2d at 455. "If the trial judge, in the exercise of his discretion, finds that the verdict is against the manifest weight of the evidence, he should grant a new trial; on the other hand, where there is sufficient evidence to support the verdict of the jury, it constitutes an abuse of discretion for the tria
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