Same Juror Rule

The “same juror” rule provides that a verdict is invalid unless the same jurors agree on all issues. The Supreme Court of Ohio adopted the “same juror” rule in the context of a comparative negligence case, and the major principle behind the rule is that deciding if a party is casually negligent is not independent from apportioning the degree of fault for that negligence. Therefore, if a juror who disagrees that a defendant was casually negligent also signs a verdict assessing fault to the defendant, the verdicts are inconsistent.

In an Ohio medical malpractice case decided by the Court of Appeals of Ohio Second Appellate District Montgomery County (“Ohio Appellate Court”) on July 14, 2023 held that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that members of the jury who did not find defendant negligent were prohibited from participating in the proximate cause determination. The error in question occurred when two jurors were not allowed to deliberate with the full jury on the issue of proximate cause. At that point, six jurors had already concluded that the defendant was negligent.

The Ohio Appellate Court further held that this error was not harmless, because parties have a constitutional right to have a full jury determine all essential elements of their claims. The “same juror” rule, which states that a verdict is invalid unless the same jurors agree on all issues, did not apply, because inquiries about liability and damages are separate and independent, rather than interdependent. Thus, jurors who did not find that a party was negligent can still participate in deciding if the negligence was the proximate cause of an injury, and precluding them from doing so deprives a party of the right to a full jury trial. The trial court erred in denying the motion for a new trial on the basis that prohibiting certain jurors from participating in the determination of proximate cause was harmless error: “parties have a constitutional right to have a full jury determine all essential elements of their claims, and forbidding jurors who do not find a breach of duty from participating in proximate cause deliberations violates this right.”

“[T]he judgment of the trial court will be reversed, and this cause will be remanded for a new trial. Again, the point here is that even if the interrogatory answers were “consistent,” that had nothing to do with the right that was at issue. The fault was in prohibiting the full jury from considering both negligence and proximate cause, and that deprivation was not harmless because it involved the right to have a full jury deliberate the case.”

The Ohio Appellate Court concluded: “All of Hild’s assignments of error having been sustained, the judgment of the trial court denying the motion for new trial is affirmed in part, i.e., as to the finding of negligence by Sandra Ward. The judgment denying the motion for new trial is also reversed in part and is remanded for a new trial. On remand, the remaining issues to be submitted to the jury will be: (1) whether Ward’s negligence directly and proximately caused Boldman’s injury and death; (2) whether Ward was under the direction and control of Dr. Phillips; (3) whether Good Samaritan was responsible under the doctrine of agency by estoppel; and (4) the total amount of compensatory damages, if any, that were caused due to Ward’s negligence.”

Source Hild v. Samaritan Health Partner, 2023-Ohio-2408.

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