We presumably won't see any published opinions today since it's a holiday (for some), so I wanted to briefly mention this opinion from late Friday.
It's unusual. You don't see many Court of Appeal opinions that find it to be an abuse of discretion for the trial court to refuse to grant a new trial based on juror misconduct. You similarly don't see many cases in which the jury, as here, allegedly awards insufficient damages; instead, the problem (if any) is typically awards that are too high, rather than too low.
So the opinion is worth a read, if only as a statistical outlier.
It's also worthwhile because it involves a factual setting that I imagine is not uncommon in motor vehicle accident cases; namely, the jurors (allegedly) wondering why the plaintiff is suing the driver himself rather than the insurance company, and purportedly not wanting to award damages against an individual.
You would have thought that jurors would understand, either through instructions or otherwise, what's really going on in this setting, but apparently -- and perhaps not surprisingly -- not.
