Murрhy’s Law was in full operation when the district court submitted this case to the jury, when the jury considered it, when the court received the verdict, and when judgment was rendered. Because the verdict as returned appears to be internally inconsistent, and the fоrm itself is hopelessly confused, we reluctantly reverse and remand for a new trial.
I
The underlying lawsuit was relatively straightforward. Brad Turyna went to work for Martam Construction (Martam) as a truck driver in January 1986. He worked there until September 26,1989, when he was fired. Almost two yеars later, Turyna filed this lawsuit against Martam, Tamas Kutro-vacz (owner and president of Martam), and Claude Koenig (a vice-president of Martam), claiming (1) that Martam owed him overtime pay from September 19, 1988, through September 26,1989, under the Fair Labor Standаrds Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201, and (2) that his firing violated the public policy of Illinois and FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3), because it was retaliatory in certain respects. The case went to trial in May 1994 before a jury. At the close of Turyna’s case, the court entered a judgment as a matter of law on a supplemental claim of breach of an oral contract, but the overtime and retaliatory discharge claims were allowed to proceed.
The case was submitted to the jury on a form that wasn’t quite a general verdict fоrm, but it wasn’t special verdicts under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 49(a) or a general verdict with interrogatories under Rule 49(b) either. For ease in understanding what follows, we have attached the three-page form to this opinion as Appendix A. It asks the jury to indicate for each Count
Now, if you find in favor of defendants on both Counts I and II, then you, of course, need not consider the issue of damages. If, however, you find in plaintiff’s favоr on Count I and/or on either or both parts of Count II, then you will need to consider the issue of damages.
While the jury was out, there was a colloquy on the record between the court and defense counsel. The court informed counsel that he would like the lawyers to stay within five minutes of the courtroom, because he hated to have the jury wait once it was ready with a verdict. Mr. Kalinich, Martam’s lawyer, responded by saying “I was going to waive the presence.” The judge indicated that the lawyer was free to do so, but the judge wondered if the client would agree to the waiver. Mr. Kalinich assured him that the client would agree, and the court excused him. At oral argument, we learned that plaintiffs counsel was also absent from the courtroom when the jury returned its verdict. Thus, no one with any incentive to take action was present when the next events occurred, with the exception of the district judge.
When the jury returned with its verdict, the court confronted a situation that was confusing at best. The jury checked the lines “for plaintiff’ with respect to all three defendants on Count I, which was labelled “Fair Labor Standards Act.” It checked the lines “against plaintiff’ for all three defendants for both “Count II—Retaliation under Fair Labor Standards Act,” and “Count II— Retaliation undеr Public Policy of Illinois.” In the section labelled “Damages” the jury filled in the amount of $3,109.22 as compensatory damages, which it identified as unpaid overtime wages. Part (b) of the Damages section asked the jury whether it wished to award the plaintiff punitive damаges under Count II, and if so, in what amount. However, upon turning the page the jury reached a new “Count II—Retaliatory Discharge under FLSA” section. This time, it checked “yes” for defendant Martam, and wrote in $35,-618.01; it checked “no” for the other two defendants.
Facеd with this document, the district court entered judgment on the verdict, awarding Turyna $3,109.22 in compensatory damages, liquidated damages of $3,109.22 as required by the FLSA, and punitive damages against Martam in the amount of $35,618.01. The court then discharged the jury. A few days later, Martam filed а timely post-trial motion under Rule 59(e), seeking to amend the judgment on Count II to set aside the award of punitive damages. The court denied that motion, and this appeal followed.
II
Before this Court, Martam argues strenuously that there can be no award of compensatory or punitive damages to a plaintiff where the jury has found the issue of liability in favor of the defendant—an unexceptional enough proposition, if we could be sure that was ■ what happened. In the alternative, Martam argues that in the absence of compensatory damages for the retaliation claim, it is error to award punitive damages, if perchance the jury meant to indicate that the discharge was wrongful under federal law but did not inflict any actuаl damages. Tu-ryna retorts that the judgment was correctly entered because the verdict was, in substance, a general verdict accompanied by interrogatories under Rule 49(b) and thus the court was entitled to enter judgment in accordance with thе specific answers notwithstanding the inconsistent general verdict. Turyna also argues that his judgment should stand because Martam waived its objections to inconsistencies in the verdict by its waiver of presence when the verdict was returned. Finally, Turyna disputes Martam’s claim that punitive damages must rest on an award of compensatory damages.
The first, and as it turns out the last, question for us is whether this verdict is salvageable. There are only three logical possibilities: it is a general verdict for some
It seems most likely that the court intended to submit a general verdict form to this jury. General verdicts simply ask the jury to answer the question “who won,” and if the winning party is entitled to a monetary award, to answer the question “how much.” The vеrdict form reproduced in Appendix A does precisely those two things. Read one way, the jury gave inconsistent answers to those two questions: it said that Martam won (on Count II), but that it had to pay Turyna punitive damages. Read another way, the verdict is even more confused: asked the first time who won on Count II, the jury responded “Martam,” but asked the second time it responded “Turyna.”
When a jury returns a factually inconsistent general verdict, the verdict cannot stand.
Gordon v. Degelmann,
Neither party argues seriously that this verdict complied with the requirements of Rule 49(a), and for good reason—it does not. Rule 49(a) contemplatеs a “special written finding upon each issue of fact.” (Emphasis added.) In this case, the jury might have been asked whether Turyna worked overtime for the year in question (and how many hours), or whether he was asked to haul inappropriate materials, or maybе even whether Martam’s decision to fire him was retaliatory in nature. The jury here was asked no such things, as the form makes clear. Thus, nothing in Rule 49(a) can save the verdict.
Rule 49(b) blends the devices of the general verdict and the special verdict, by allowing the court to give the jury both the general verdict form and written interrogatories on particular issues of fact. Because this almost invites contradictory and inconsistent answers, the rule also addresses what the court should do when the general vеrdict and the answers to the interrogatories are not harmonious. If the answers are internally consistent, but one or more is inconsistent with the general verdict, the court has a choice among entering judgment in accordance with the answers (and disregarding the general verdict), returning the case to the jury for further deliberation, or ordering a new trial. When the answers are not internally consistent, and one or more also conflicts with the general verdict, the court has only two choices: return the case to the jury, or order a new trial. When faced with interrogatories that might conflict with a general verdict, the court must take the view of the case that reconciles the interrogatories with the general verdict.
Crossley v. General Motors Corp.,
Here, of coursе, the middle option of returning the case to the jury was, as a practical matter, not available because all parties waived their right to be present when the verdict was returned. This decision was regrettable, because it seems plаin that one if not both parties would have called the inconsistencies to the court’s attention and tried to obtain further clarification from the jury that
Nevertheless, there is an even more fundamental problem with the hypothesis that the district court was using Rule 49(b), which flows directly from our discussion of Rule 49(a). This jury was never asked any particular factual questions about the ease, and Rule 49(b) plainly states that the written interrogatories must be “upon one or more issues of fact the decision of which is necessary to a verdict.” Although the amount of damages is an issue of fact, this fact is specifically determined by the jury even under a general verdict form. Asking only this question cannot transform a general verdict into one under Rule 49(b). No particular issues of facts about the case were before the jury, and thus there was nothing upon which the court could rely as “interrogatories” that were consistent with one another but nоt with the general verdict. We cannot infer answers to issues of fact from the verdict form as a whole because of the inconsistencies noted before. Thus, nothing in Rule 49(b) eliminates the need for a new trial here.
Ill
Even if we have somehow overlоoked a way of reading this verdict that might, at a stretch of the imagination, support a verdict for one side or the other of this case, we are convinced that it is sufficiently confused that a new trial on Count II is necessary. 1 We therefore REVERSE and Remand for further proceedings.
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Notes
. Martam did not appeal the verdict on Count I. The arguments Martam has raised on appeal do not undermine the validity of that award. According to the parties, that judgment has been paid and satisfied.