This cross-appeal arises out of the trial and retrial of plaintiff William F. Raedle’s claim against his former employer, Credit Agricole Indosuez (“CAI”), and Lee Shaiman, his supervisor at that firm, for tortious interference with a job offer from another firm. Following the first trial, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Griesa, J.) vacated a defense verdict and granted Raedle a new trial. See Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 59(a)(1)(A). Upon retrial, a second jury *413 returned a verdict in Raedle’s favor and awarded substantial monetary damages. We hold that the district court abused its discretion in granting the new trial. Accordingly, we reverse the order of the district court granting the new trial; vacate the judgment entered on the basis of the second verdict; and remand the case to the district court with instructions to reinstate the first verdict and to enter judgment in defendants’ favor in accordance with that verdict.
BACKGROUND
In 2004, Raedle, a financial analyst, sued his former employer CAI, a corporate and investment bank, and two former supervisors at CAI, Lee Shaiman and Daniel Smith. CAI fired Raedle in 2001 for allegedly poor performance. Shortly afterward he secured a job offer from the Dreyfus Corporation (“Dreyfus”). But following conversations between CAI and Dreyfus— the contents of and parties to which are hotly disputed — Dreyfus rescinded the offer. Raedle sued for tortious interference with prospective contractual advantage, claiming that CAI, Shaiman, and Smith made false and disparaging comments about him to Dreyfus, resulting in the rescission of the offer. Following discovery, the district court granted summary judgment to Smith, but denied it as to CAI and Shaiman. The case proceeded to trial.
The First Trial
Since the main issue on appeal is whether the verdict in the first trial constituted a miscarriage of justice, we review in some detail the evidence presented. That evidence showed that in August 1998, Smith — then managing director of the U.S. merchant and investment banking unit of CAI — hired Raedle to work as a credit analyst in the firm’s Asset Management area. Smith testified that Raedle’s performance in 1999 was “satisfactory to above average.” J.A. at 192. In January 2000, Smith hired Shaiman to serve as co-portfolio manager and head of research, at which point Shaiman became Raedle’s supervisor. According to Smith, Raedle’s performance deteriorated throughout 2000 until his relationship with Shaiman and Smith became “broken.” J.A. at 198-199. They decided to fire him. As Smith explained at trial,
I think philosophically we were trying to organize a business around a kind of teamwork structure where people supported one another, information was shared and we made decisions collectively.... I think [Raedle] felt like ... he was more oriented into a star system where he didn’t want to have responsibilities to the rest of the team to communicate his thoughts and his analysis such that we could make these collective decisions. I think as a result of that, he didn’t agree with the way we were running the business. I felt like he didn’t have any confidence or respect for management, myself, Lee Shaiman and his colleagues.
J.A. at 199. Shaiman testified that Raedle was “difficult, argumentative, didn’t listen to direction, didn’t take direction well, didn’t produce the work product that we had asked him to, didn’t train people we gave him opportunities to do things [sic] and fretted those opportunities away.” J.A. at 162. A memorandum concerning Raedle’s termination described his “principal short-comings” as “a) poor communication of his opinions regarding individual credits within his portfolio, b) inadequate documentation of his credit analysis, c) no clear leadership skills, d) inability to help develop junior analysts within the group.” J.A. at 1066-1069.
After being fired in January 2001, Raedle promptly sought other employment and in March 2001 secured a job offer *414 from Gerald Thunelius of Dreyfus to work as a high yield bond analyst. However, only weeks later, after contacting CAI and investigating Raedle’s performance, Dreyfus rescinded the offer. According to notes Raedle said he took during a conversation with Thunelius in 2001, “[something was said by Lee Shaiman that ended the offer.” J.A. at 989. Raedle’s notes from another conversation he said he had with Dreyfus’s human resources manager, Mary Beth Leibig, also stated that Shaiman and Smith “[b]oth provided bad references. Both trashed me.” J.A. at 992.
To prove that someone at CAI had tortiously interfered with his offer from Dreyfus, Raedle relied primarily on Thunelius’s testimony about a telephone call allegedly placed by Leibig to someone at CAI as part of Dreyfus’s due diligence regarding Raedle’s prior employment. Thunelius testified that, following this call, he attended a meeting with Leibig, another human resources employee, and the chief investment officer of Dreyfus (the “Dreyfus meeting”), where he learned that “Will Raedle’s boss” had offered Leibig “very non-discreet information about [Raedle].” J.A. at 243. In particular, he testified that “[Leibig] said that she was fearful that there were some mental issues, that there were some ten[de]ncies of — I think the word used was psychopathic and there were other more terms like that thrown around.” J.A. at 242-243. He said “[t]here was a lot of inference ... to [Raedle] being, eventually being a problematic employee for mental-type issues” and that “[Leibig] said he had problems with some of his co-workers, male co-workers.... What I heard from her, there were a lot of very personal issues, that he might not be able to — he would not be a good employee for Dreyfus.” J.A. at 243. When asked whether Leibig had actually used the word “psychopathic,” Thunelius clarified that he did not recall whether she or someone else in the meeting had used the word. J.A. at 256.
Because he was “shocked” by what Lei-big was saying, Thunelius testified, he later contacted CAI himself and spoke to “someone who identified himself as [Raedle]’s boss,” whose name he could not recall, who “repeated” that Raedle “was a problem, that he had mental issues.” J.A. at 243-244.
Sriram Balakrishnan, a former CAI employee, testified that Shaiman told him that he (Shaiman) had received a call concerning Raedle and “indicated that after what he [Shaiman] told him, he did not think that [Raedle] would get the job.” J.A. at 36. Although Balakrishnan did not know what Shaiman had said or to whom, he testified that “[t]o the best of my recollection, I believe it was Dreyfus[ ].... I have to caveat, it’s just to the best of my recollection.” J.A. at 36.
By contrast, Shaiman testified that he had no recollection of discussing Raedle with either Leibig or Thunelius, adding that “Thunelius” was an “unusual” name that he would have remembered — in part because his son had a poster of jazz musician Thelonious Monk in his bedroom, which would have served as a “pneumonic.” J.A. at 160. Shaiman explained that he would never have said Raedle had “mental issues” because “I would never say anything like that about anyone. This is a hot button issue for me personally. I have a 19-year old son that has behavioral and other special needs, and he has been in the care of a behavioral psychologist for a dozen or more years.... I would never do that based on my personal experience.” J.A. at 311. Leibig similarly testified that she had no recollection of speaking to anyone at CAI.
Defense counsel argued to the jury that, even though none of the defense witnesses *415 remembered discussing Raedle’s employment prospects at Dreyfus, if Raedle’s “boss” had given him a “bad reference”— as Thunelius supposedly reported to Raedle in 2001 — it would have been an honest one grounded in Raedle’s poor performance at CAI. Indeed, Shaiman testified that, although he did not recall giving Dreyfus a reference about Raedle, he recalled an inquiry about Raedle from a professional acquaintance, Aldona Schwartz of Merrill Lynch. According to Shaiman, his response to Schwartz’s questions about Raedle was, “I really don’t want to talk about it, it wasn’t a pleasant experience.” J.A. at 164. He explained that “[w]hat I think I told — what I believe I told Ms. Schwartz was the truth.... I don’t think there was any malice in my mind at all toward Mr. Raedle.” J.A. at 165. Meanwhile, Thunelius testified that he had “[gone] to a few of the primary dealers, ... asked if anybody knew of [Raedle] and what his reputation was,” and heard “favorable things.” J.A. at 240.
On cross-examination defense counsel aggressively attacked Thunelius’s credibility. Counsel introduced Thunelius’s deposition testimony in which he repeatedly testified that he could not recall the precise words spoken by Leibig in the Dreyfus meeting — only that the words seemed “of a personal nature.” J.A. at 249. The core of Thunelius’s trial testimony, on the other hand, was that Leibig said that “Raedle’s boss had told her that he had mental issues.” J.A. at 255. When defendants attempted to impeach Thunelius on cross-examination using his deposition testimony, Thunelius insisted that he was testifying truthfully both in deposition and at trial because the word “personal” means “mental issues.” J.A. at 261. Insinuating that the deposition questioners had simply failed to extract precise words from him, he explained that “[n]o one said to me, define strong personal issues.” J.A. at 261. But during his deposition, he had professed apologetically, “I know it sounds hokey to everybody here, but I don’t really remember” and “I hope everybody here realizes ... that I wish that I could remember the exact wording.” J.A. at 250-251.
The trial lasted five days. Defense counsel’s closing argument stressed the centrality of credibility determinations to the jury’s deliberations, asserting that “[t]he issue on the tortious interference claim ... is do you believe Mr. Thunelius or do you believe Mr. Shaiman?” J.A. at 340. Similarly, in its instructions to the jury, the district court emphasized that “[t]here is a very sharp challenge to the credibility of Mr. Thunelius, and you will consider that carefully, as to whether you believe his testimony in court despite what are claimed to be inconsistencies with his deposition.” J.A. at 374. After 93 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a defense verdict.
The Motion for a New Trial
After receiving the verdict, the district court invited Raedle to move for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial, opining that “there’s absolutely no rational reason why [CAI] could not find out who made the statements [to Dreyfus] and produce evidence of that effect.” J.A. at 387. Regarding Thunelius’s testimony, the district court stated, “obviously that is a jury question, but the fact that not one word of testimony came from a [CAI] witness as to what communications were made and by whom ... to me ... makes it impossible to accept this verdict as in accordance with the weight of the evidence.” J.A. at 387.
Raedle subsequently moved for a new trial under Rule 59(a)(1)(A), and the district court granted the motion, concluding that the verdict was “drastically wrong, and would result in a serious injustice if
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allowed [to] stand.”
Raedle v. Credit Agricole Indosuez,
No. 04 Civ. 2235,
[w]here does this leave the weight of the evidence? As already stated, it is a certainty that someone at CAI made a sufficiently damaging communication to Dreyfus, so that Dreyfus drew back from its quite strong desire to hire plaintiff for a very favorable position. Only one witness has testified as to what that communication was, and that is Thunelius. His testimony is that Leibig relayed to him that someone at Dreyfus had characterized plaintiff as having mental problems to the degree of being psychotic, after which Thunelius spoke directly to plaintiffs former superior who repeated basically the same thing. Balakrishnan’s testimony would indicate that the person at CAI who made this communication was Shaiman. If such a description was made by CAI to Dreyfus, it was false. No one contends that plaintiff had mental problems of any kind. Neither defendant CAI nor defendant Shaiman contends that such a description of plaintiff would have had any truth to it.
It is true that there were differences between the testimony of Thunelius at the trial versus his testimony on deposition. His deposition testimony was to the effect that there was a negative description of plaintiff of a personal nature, which he thought was “garbage,” but he was no more specific at the deposition. In his trial testimony Thunelius was specific, and stated that he was told that plaintiff had mental issues to the degree of being psychotic. It was surely within the jury’s province to consider that there was a serious question about the credibility of Thunelius. However, Thunelius was the only witness to provide the slightest clue as to what was said by CAI to Dreyfus. And even his deposition testimony, while lacking in specifics, surely supported the idea that a superior of plaintiff at CAI had made a seriously disparaging comment about plaintiff. Moreover, the testimony of Thunelius finds corroboration in the testimony of Balakrishnan. Against the testimony of Thunelius and Balakrishnan must be weighed the total lack of explanation from the people who were really responsible for what happened— i.e., plaintiff[]s superiors at CAI, particularly Shaiman. The court simply does not credit this total denial, or total denial of any memory.
Id. at *3-4 (emphasis added).
The Second Trial
The case was retried in March 2010. Following a four-day retrial on the tortious interference claim, the jury returned a verdict for Raedle, awarding $1,023,922 in lost wages, $600,000 in reputational damages, and $800,000 in punitive damages. Thereafter, defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial and to set aside the punitive damages award. The court vacated the punitive damages award, but otherwise denied the motions.
Raedle v. Credit Agricole Indosuez,
No. 04 Civ. 2235,
DISCUSSION
We review a district court’s grant of a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence for abuse of discretion.
Farrior v. Waterford Bd. of Educ.,
Tortious Interference With Prospective Contractual Advantage
In order to state a claim for tortious interference with prospective economic advantage under New York law, a plaintiff must show (1) business relations with a third party; (2) defendants’ interference with those business relations; (3) that defendants acted with the sole purpose of harming the plaintiff or used dishonest, unfair, or improper means; and (4) injury to the relationship.
Purgess v. Sharrock,
In
Miller v. Mount Sinai Medical Center,
Rule 59(a)(1)(A) Motions
A court may grant a new trial “for any reason for which a new trial has heretofore been granted in an action at law in federal court,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(a)(1)(A), including if the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. “[A] decision is against the weight of the evidence ... if and only if the verdict is [ (1) ] seriously erroneous
*418
or [ (2) ] a miscarriage of justice.”
Farrior,
On new trial motions, the trial judge may weigh the evidence and the credibility of witnesses and need not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict winner.
United States v. Landau,
two conflicting principles: the parties’ Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury and the power of the district court, also necessary to our jury system, to set aside a seriously erroneous verdict based on the weight of the evidence. This tension is most acute tuhere ... the result may turn in large part on the credibility of a single witness. While this makes the trial court’s task in ruling on a new trial motion more difficult, it does not preclude the possibility that the motion may be granted. In Sorlucco [v. New York City Police Department,971 F.2d 864 (2d Cir.1992)], the Court of Appeals [reversed the district court’s grant of a new trial after finding] that the trial judge had disagreed with the jury on the credibility of a key witness but did not explain how that difference of opinion le[d] to a miscarriage of justice. We do not read Sorlucco to mean that a trial judge can never substitute its view of the evidence for that of the jury, provided the judge is convinced that the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result or that the verdict is a miscarriage of justice.
What these cases teach is the high degree of deference accorded to the jury’s evaluation of witness credibility, and that jury verdicts should be disturbed with great infrequency. To be sure, Rule 59(a)(1)(A) affords trial courts latitude in reviewing jury verdicts and in considering credibility when doing so. But where, as here, a verdict is predicated almost entirely on the jury’s assessments of credibility, such a verdict generally should not be disturbed except in an egregious case, to *419 correct a seriously erroneous result, or to prevent a miscarriage of justice.
The record before us does not support the district court’s conclusion that the verdict “would result in a serious injustice if allowed [to] stand.”
Raedle I,
Second, the district court acknowledged that “[i]t was surely within the jury’s province to consider that there was a serious question about the credibility of Thunelius.”
Raedle I,
In the final analysis, the only testimony regarding what was actually said came from Thunelius, and thus the entire case hinged on his credibility. Indeed, defense counsel vigorously challenged Thunelius’ credibility both on cross-examination and also in closing statements. The district court squarely presented the issue to the jury in its instructions. Here, as in
Sorlucco,
“[t]he veracity of [Thunelius’] statements ... was a matter of credibility for the jury to resolve.”
What is more, the district court did not even seem to disagree with the jury over Thunelius’s credibility. Instead, it “simply [did] not credit” the “total lack of explanation from the people who were *420 really responsible for what happened — i.e., plaintiff[’]s superiors at CAI, particularly Shaiman.” Id. But if Thunelius was the “only witness to provide the slightest clue as to what was said by CAI to Dreyfus,” id., and if the jury disbelieved Thunelius, it is somewhat irrelevant whether the defense witnesses were lying when they claimed not to recall discussing Raedle’s employment prospects. For if the jury did not credit Thunelius’s version of events, in a case where Raedle bore the burden of proof, it is far from clear that an evidentiary basis existed to conclude that defendants tortiously interfered with Raedle’s job offer from Dreyfus.
In any event, given that three years elapsed between “what happened” and Raedle’s lawsuit, and given that “what happened” consisted of two short Dreyfus-initiated phone calls to CAI, it is certainly not “impossible” to believe the defense witnesses’ “total denial of any memory,” the district court’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Id.
The jury could reasonably have (1) credited Shaiman’s testimony that he would never have impugned Raedle on such “personal” grounds given his son’s behavioral and mental health issues; (2) accepted the defense’s theory that if Shaiman said anything at all, it would have been an honest — albeit potentially damaging — assessment;' or (3) credited Shaiman’s testimony that he offered precisely this type of reference to Merrill Lynch, a reference he remembered giving because he was personally acquainted with the party seeking it. None of this testimony was bizarre, far-fetched, “patently incredible or defí[ant of] physical realities.”
Cf. United States v. Coté,
CONCLUSION
The order of the district court granting the new trial is reversed; the judgment entered on the basis of the second verdict is vacated; and the case is remanded to the district court with instructions to reinstate the first verdict and to enter judgment in defendants’ favor in accordance with that verdict.
Notes
. Alternatively, based on the fact that Dreyfus eventually fired Thunelius, the jury could have concluded that Thunelius was motivated to lie by a desire to see Dreyfus embarrassed.