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Redmond v. Socha10/6/2005
05 Ill. 2d at 468. See also Carroll v. Preston Trucking Co., 349 Ill. App. 3d 562 (2004) (rejecting juror affidavits offered to support assertion that the jury used an impermissible quotient process to reach its verdict). This rule serves to protect not only the finality of judgments but also the privacy of the jury room. Pitsonbarger, 205 Ill. 2d at 468. In addition, the inadmissibility of such affidavits protects jurors from being " ` "harassed and beset by the defeated party" ' " (Pitsonbarger, 205 Ill. 2d at 468, quoting Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 120, 97 L.Ed. 2d 90, 106, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 2747 (1987), quoting McDonald v. Pless, 238 U.S. 264, 267, 59 L.Ed. 1300, 1302, 35 S.Ct. 783, 784 (1915)), in an effort to have an unfavorable verdict set aside.
In the present case, the trial court was not presented with juror affidavits, but with affidavits from plaintiff's counsel describing statements made to him by individual jurors. Opposing counsel disputed the accuracy of the description and offered her own version of the jurors' statements. In the end, the trial court was faced with a swearing contest between attorneys that could have been resolved only by the testimony or affidavits of the jurors themselves. We see no reason to treat an attorney's affidavit purporting to reveal jurors' opinions on motive, method, or process any differently than juror affidavits. In both instances, the party proffering the affidavits is making an improper attempt to impeach the verdict and the jurors themselves, having done their civic duty, are subjected to questioning by a disappointed litigant.
We conclude that the contents of the affidavits could not properly be considered in ruling on the posttrial motion. We are unable to determine from the record how much weight, if any, the trial court gave to the affidavits. The appellate court made no mention of the affidavits in its opinion.
Because the affidavits impermissibly seek to impeach the jury's verdict, this court will not consider the affidavits as we determine whether the verdicts were legally inconsistent or against the manifest weight of the evidence.
APPLICABILITY OF ILLINOIS PATTERN JURY INSTRUCTION No. B21.04(5)
At trial, Redmond tendered pattern jury instruction No. B21.04(5) verbatim, without asking the trial court to modify the instruction. Socha made no objection and the trial court gave the instruction as tendered. Redmond now argues that, under the facts of this case, instruction No. B21.04(5), which permits the jury to find against both the plaintiff and the counter-plaintiff, invites legally inconsistent and, therefore, impermissible verdicts. Socha argues that Redmond should not now be heard to challenge the applicability of the pattern instruction when he made no attempt to modify the instruction before it was given to the jury.
In support of her forfeiture argument, Socha cites Auton v. Logan Landfill, Inc., 105 Ill. 2d 537, 550 (1984), a products liability action in which, at trial, the plaintiff argued against a comparative negligence instruction but, on appeal, argued that a new trial was required because this court had recently applied comparative fault to a products liability claim. In Auton, this court stated:
"A plaintiff cannot take the position on appeal that a case should have been presented to the jury with different instructions than those which were given unless at trial he tendered instructions which set forth the statement of the law he contends, on appeal, would have been the proper one." Auton, 105 Ill. 2d at 549.
Redmond's brief does not respond directly to the forfeiture assertion, but asserts that " egardless of the jury instruct
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