Concept

Answers That Conflict Internally

Consistency of written answers with the general verdict

Answers That Conflict Internally

Rule 49(b)(4) governs the most troubled verdict the hybrid form can produce: the answers contradict one another, and at least one of them also contradicts the general verdict. Judgment must not be entered. The court must either direct the jury to consider its answers and verdict further or order a new trial.¹

This branch differs from the one just studied in a single variable. There the answers told one consistent story and only the verdict failed to fit it, so Rule 49(b)(3)(A) let the court approve judgment according to the answers, notwithstanding the general verdict.² Here the answers cannot agree even among themselves, and that option disappears.

Judgment on the answers works only when the answers describe a single version of events. The court treats them as the jury's findings of fact and applies the law to them. Once two answers contradict each other, the jury has reported two incompatible versions, and any judgment would have to rest on one of them. Choosing between them is fact-finding, and nothing in the jury's papers shows which finding the jury meant. A judge who chose would decide the facts in the jury's place, with no way to surmise what the appropriate verdict should be.³

The general verdict cannot break the tie. It conflicts with at least one answer by definition, and even if it happens to match another, the same jury produced all three, so the match does not show which finding the jury believed. One court met this problem when a jury named Martam the winner on Count II yet awarded Turyna punitive damages. Martam urged the court to disregard the damages answer. The court refused, because it could not tell which part of the jury's verdict should control, and it observed that giving primacy to the liability answer would do as much violence to the jury's findings as giving primacy to the damages answer.⁴ That is why Rule 49(b)(4) bars judgment of any kind, not merely judgment on the answers.

Hypothetical Illustration

A homeowner sues a roofing contractor for water damage on the sole theory that the contractor failed to seal the flashing around the chimney. The jury returns a general verdict for the homeowner for $40,000. In its first written answer it finds that the contractor failed to seal the flashing, and in its second it finds that the contractor properly sealed the flashing. The answers cannot both be true, and the verdict agrees with only the first. The judge cannot enter judgment for the homeowner by crediting the first answer, or for the contractor by crediting the second, because either course settles a factual conflict that only the jury could settle. If the jurors are still in the courtroom, the judge can direct them to reconsider. Otherwise a new trial is the remaining course.

An automobile case shows the other side of the line. The jury returned a $500,000 general verdict for the plaintiff but specifically found the plaintiff contributorily negligent. Because the substantive law barred recovery on that finding, the court entered judgment for the defendant on the specific answer, since it was not possible to reconcile the inconsistency.⁵ That judgment was available because the answers, taken together, gave the court a finding to apply, and the court needed only to apply the law's consequence to it. A jury that had answered yes to one question and no to another about the same negligence would have left the court with no finding to apply. A student who sees the verdict clash with an answer and reaches at once for judgment on the answers has skipped the question that decides the branch: do the answers agree with each other?

That question sorts the cases only after a conflict is real. The court must first try to reconcile the apparent inconsistency by viewing the case in the light most favorable to the verdict's consistency, and a contradiction that dissolves on a fair reading leaves a consistent verdict.⁶ Once reconciliation fails, the two branches compare as follows.

Relationship of the answers	Judgment on the answers	Further jury consideration	New trial
Consistent with each other, at least one inconsistent with the verdict	Permitted	Permitted	Permitted
Inconsistent with each other, at least one also inconsistent with the verdict	Barred	Permitted	Permitted

In the second row the court must pick one of the two remaining courses, and the choice rests in its discretion. It typically depends on the judge's perception of whether the jury is so confused that further deliberations might merely mask its error.⁷ A judge who sees a deep contradiction on the very facts the jury was asked to find may well conclude that another round of deliberation would only hide the problem, and a new trial then becomes the safer course. Resubmission also requires jurors who can still be reconvened, which is one reason the timing of any objection, taken up next, matters.

Answers That Conflict Internally

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