On this date in 1977, the Supreme Court decided Baxter v. Fairmont Food Co., 74 N.J. 588 (1977). The Court’s unanimous opinion, written by Chief Justice Hughes, has been cited nearly 500 times by judicial decisions in the 43 years since its issuance.
As the Chief Justice noted at the outset of his opinion, the case involved “the sometimes troublesome question of the extent and nature of judicial power, whether that of a trial or appellate court, to overrule a jury verdict, not on the basis of trial error on questions of law, but because of claimed discordance between the verdict and the evidence on which it was based.” Plaintiff was severely injured when a truck that ran a red light collided with his motorcycle. A jury awarded plaintiff $300,000, but the Law Division judge remitted that amount to $150,000. Both plaintiff and defendant appealed, and the Appellate Division reversed the remittitur and restored the jury verdict. The Supreme Court then affirmed that result.
Chief Justice Hughes stated that the judgment of the initial factfinder, whether a jury or, in a bench trial, a judge “is entitled to very considerable respect. It should not be overthrown except upon the basis of a carefully reasoned and factually supported (and articulated) determination, after
canvassing the record and weighing the evidence, that the continued viability of the judgment would constitute a manifest denial of justice.” A judge is not to substitute his or her views for those of the jury, but may intervene only if there is a “manifest miscarriage of justice.”
“[A] trial judge, before acting in derogation of the jury’s fixing of damages, must be convinced, and that very clearly, of something like this: “This verdict is terribly wrong — having canvassed the record I reach this conclusion because of substantive factors in the totality of the evidence [e.g., the incredible testimony offered by a party, the overwhelming weight of the evidence with respect to a certain fact, the failure of a party to produce any countervailing medical or other expert testimony, etc.] — and I must therefore determine that it is so much against the weight of the evidence as to be, manifestly, a miscarriage of justice.” The same test, the Court said, bound appellate judges, though where a trial judge’s “feel of the case” from having seen the witnesses is at issue, that would affect appellate review.
But where “the record is extensive and plaintiff’s evidence largely uncontradicted, where no exaggeration or malingering is apparent, mentioned or implied in that record, where no countervailing medical evidence was offered by defendant, as here, the ‘feel of the case’ factor is minimal and plainly based only upon the trial judge’s view of the disfigured and crippled body of the plaintiff, and upon his subjective feeling as to the worth in money of the ordeal of suffering with that damaged body for a lifetime.” The Law Division offered no “specifics in the stated reason for the present remittitur” and no “tangible findings” to which “feel of the case” deference might have been given.
The trial judge had expressed “shock” at the size of the jury award. But Chief Justice Hughes found that “the basis for this conclusion … continue[d] to elude” the Supreme Court.
After describing plaintiff’s horrific injuries, which would last for almost half a century (plaintiff was 17 years old at the time of his injury), the Court agreed with the Appellate Division that the jury verdict, “although admittedly generous,” was “well within the range of permissible jury decision.” “Setting aside the subjective view of a judge (or a reviewing court) as to the amount he or it would have awarded if he or it had been the jury, we, like the Appellate Division, are totally unable to conclude that the jury verdict of $ 300,000 in damages in this grievous case was ‘so disproportionate to the injury and resulting disability as to shock the conscience and [convince the court] that to sustain the award would be manifestly unjust.’ Nor to believe that ‘it clearly and convincingly appears that there was a miscarriage of justice under the law.’ To the contrary. Upon the whole evidential record, we consider this verdict well within the range of permissible jury decision with which neither the trial court, nor this Court, ought to interfere.”
Though the Supreme Court restructured, to some extent, remittitur (and additur) last year, the revision does not affect the principles of Baxter. The case will likely continue to be a guide for judges who face remittitur motions.