Remittitur – Jury Award

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Civil

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, ROVNER, Circuit Judge, and SPRINGMANN, District Judge

Remittitur – Jury Award

No. 14-2862 Seneca Adams v. City of Chicago

District court abuses discretion by reducing appellant jury award without option of new trial.

“One troubling feature of the court’s rationale for reducing the verdicts was its apparent reliance on its own general knowledge of the Cook County Jail. The district court seized on the fact that the Adams brothers’ lawyer in his closing argument at trial made admittedly inappropriate remarks about the Cook County Jail, calling the inmates “animals” and that he wouldn’t wish them “on anybody except the murderers, rapists, violent criminals who should be there.” That isolated statement convinced the judge that the jury award could only have been the “product of the jury’s fevered imaginings or personal vendetta.” Farfaras, 433 F.3d at 566 (quoting AIC Sec. Investigations, Ltd., 55 F.3d at 1285). But the record contained far more than counsel’s overblown argument. We note as well that the court gave the jury the usual instruction warning it that arguments of counsel are not evidence—an instruction we routinely assume the jury follows.”

Vacated and Remanded with instructions to reinstate jury verdict.

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.