Challenging the Verdict Sample Clauses

Challenging the Verdict. Jury verdicts can be affected by errors which occurred during trial such as the introduction of inadmissible evidence, improper argument or erroneous jury instructions. If a party enters into a high-low and yet believes that the jury verdict is the result of error, is there any way to avoid the agreement? In all likelihood, not without including specific terms in the high-low agreement addressing such errors. The trial court in Xxxxx x. Xxxxxx granted the plaintiff’s motion to set aside the verdict because the judge was convinced that the jury was not properly instructed. However, when the case finally made its way to the Supreme Court, the resulting opinion suggests that, once the jury renders a verdict, the high-low is binding and enforceable unless the parties included in the agreement terms allowing relief from the verdict. On appeal in Xxxxx x. Xxxxxx was the trial judge’s enforcement of the high-low in the third trial. The defendant insisted that he was no longer bound by the high-low because the plaintiff repudiated the agreement by refusing the tender of $350,000 following the jury verdict in the first trial. The Supreme Court agreed with the defendant that the original high-low agreement was no longer in place, reversed the trial judge’s enforcement of the high-low, and entered judgment for the defendant. 254 Va. at 352. Implicit in the ruling is the Court’s conclusion that the defendant had the right to enforce the high-low agreement in the first trial and that the plaintiff repudiated the agreement by moving for a new trial. To reach this result, the Court had to conclude that the plaintiff did not have a right to repudiate the high-low agreement in light of erroneous jury instructions: Recognizing that there is no explicit provision in the agreement requiring the jury to be “properly instructed on the law,” plaintiffs assert that it “was an implicit term of the agreement [and]… there was no agreement not to seek post verdict relief in the trial court.” 254 Va. at 354. The Court, however, found “nothing in counsel’s statement implying that a ‘properly instructed’ jury was part of the agreement or that either party could seek post-verdict relief in the trial court.” The Court refused to “rewrite the agreement to impose provisions that are neither stated nor implied therein. The plaintiff’s unjustified refusal of the tender prevented performance of the agreement and gave [the defendant] the right to regard it as terminated.” Id. (citations omitted...