January 30, 2014, Utah Court of Appeals Case Summaries

Unifund CCR v. Chan, 2014 UT App 25 (January 30, 2014)

            This is a Per Curiam decision in a debt collection matter.  Essentially the court holds that there is not a substantial issue for appellate review because the Appellees corrected a purported dispute of fact by filing a second Motion for Summary Judgment that addressed Appellants concerns and Appellant failed to file a rule 59 motion within the required ten days.

Jessop v. Hardman, 2014 UT App 28 (January 30, 2014)

Issues: Sufficiency of the Evidence; Irregularity in the Proceedings; Utah R. Evid. 606.

            This case involves a tort claim and appeals from the trial court’s denial of a motion for new trial alleging insufficient evidence to support the verdict and “irregularit[ies] in the proceedings.”  The facts of the case are essentially that an Hardman left a hot iron on an ironing board and left the room closing the door behind him.  Hardman’s friend puts a baby in a car seat next to the ironing board without telling Hardman.  The baby pulls the iron’s cord and severely burns itself.

            The irregularity in the proceedings was the court bailiff’s refusal to let two jurors call family to let them know the trial ran longer than expected and to make new arrangements for previously scheduled events.

            Appellant also challenges the trial court’s striking a paragraph from a juror’s declaration that was submitted in support of her Motion for New Trial.

            The Court rejects the insufficient evidence to support the verdict because there is no duty to warn a visitor of an open and obvious danger, and there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that the iron was an open and obvious danger.

            The Court rejects the irregularities argument because it did not see any sign of coercion relating to the verdict.  The jurors were free to communicate with the judge about any concerns they had and they did not express any feelings of time constraints.

            The Court holds that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in striking a portion of the juror’s affidavit pursuant to Utah R. of Evid. 606.  The opinion contains a basic outline of the purpose of rule 606 and the importance of keeping jury deliberations confidential.

            Some important statements by the court are as follows:

“The trial court’s denial of a motion for a new trial will be reversed only if ‘the evidence to support the verdict was completely lacking or was so slight and unconvincing as to make the verdict plainly unreasonable and unjust.’” Mann v. Fredrickson, 2006 UT App 475, ¶ 8, 153 P.3d 768 (quoting Nelson v. Trujillo, 657 P.2d 730, 732 (Utah 1982)).

At ¶ 5

The trial judge did not give an Allen instruction, impose time limits on the jury, or otherwise urge the jurors to deliberate quickly. Indeed, no act of the trial judge is even at issue here. Moreover, the jurors knew how to communicate with the judge and in fact did so twice during deliberations, yet they never expressed concern over the timing of their deliberations. They deliberated for two hours. The judge stated that he met with all the jurors afterward and none mentioned a time constraint.4 We see no abuse of discretion here.

At ¶ 21.

We conclude that the trial court’s rulings were well within its discretion. The court refused to strike paragraph 4 of the declaration, which describes actions of the bailiff and other facts outside the jury’s deliberations. But the court struck paragraph 6, which describes the deliberations themselves and one juror’s opinion of other jurors’ mental states and voting motivations

At ¶ 29.