Raymond Webster v. M/V Moolchand

Special interrogatories to the jury have wondrous virtues. The court may carefully consider the exact question to be asked, the possible ambiguities in the form of the question, and the consequences of each of the possible answers. If, however, the parties do not carefully reflect on the questions and on the implications of the jurys responses, they may find that the jurys answer did not resolve the case but left room for an appeal. In this personal injury suit, as a result of the parties failure fully to explore the implications of every possible answer to a special jury interrogatory and to clarify the question, the interrogatory was so framed that the jurys answer created a possible inconsistency with its answer to another question. Hence, the plaintiff, disappointed with the amount of the jury verdict, seeks to impugn the verdict. Not to be outdone, the defendant seeks completely to excape liability. We conclude that the trial was fair, the jury charge was a reasonably clear exposition of law, the interrogatory was not defective, and the various other points at issue were properly resolved by the trial court. Hence, we affirm.