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Logic dictates: Ohio Supreme Court settles negligence action jury instructions

9/10/24

By: Doug P. Holthus and Spencer M. Sukel 

Last week, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued a significant ruling in Hild v. Samaritan Health Partners affecting litigants’ right to a jury trial under the Ohio Constitution. Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-3338.  

The case presented for the Court’s consideration presented four propositions of law, of which only the following two were necessary to resolve the matter before the Court: (1) whether the same-juror rule, as established in O’Connell v. Chesapeake & Ohio RR. Co., 58 Ohio St.3d 226 (1991), logically applies to the issues of negligence and proximate causation in cases of alleged medical negligence; and, (2) whether logic requires that the same-juror rule applies to negligence and proximate cause in actions based on negligence, including medical malpractice cases. The action arose from the death of Scott Boldman (“decedent”) relative to rendered medical treatment. The administrator of decedent’s estate (“Hild”) asserted claims against medical professionals and entities connected with decedent’s treatment (hereinafter, collectively, “hospital”), including medical negligence.  

On December 24, 2017, decedent presented to hospital with complaints of stomach pain. Decedent was transferred and scheduled for an emergency appendectomy, which required the administration of anesthesia. After surgery, decedent emerged from anesthesia preemptively, became combative, and self-extubated resulting in death. The parties disputed the cause of this sequence of events, which proceeded to a jury trial. There, during the jury-instruction phase, the jury was provided with several at-issue Interrogatories (designated as Interrogatories “A”, “B”, and “C”) to guide its decision-making. Each was followed by separate instructions. Only Interrogatories “A” and “C” became at-issue. Interrogatory “A” asked the jury whether they found hospital was negligent in its care and treatment of decedent and instructed if six or more jurors answered “yes”, to proceed to Interrogatory “B.” Only those jurors who answered “yes” therefore were qualified to participate in answering subsequent Interrogatories. Interrogatory “C” asked the jury whether they found that hospital’s negligence proximately caused the injury and death of decedent and instructed that at least six jurors must agree.

Hild objected to the substance of these Interrogatories contemporaneous to their reading, which the trial court found unpersuasive. The jury, thus following the above-stated instructions during deliberation, returned a verdict in favor of hospital finding hospital was negligent in its care, but that such negligence did not proximately cause decedent’s injury and death.  

Hild filed a motion for a new trial arguing that the jury instructions, which employed the same-juror rule, violated the Ohio Constitution because they precluded all jurors from voting on all elements of the claim. Trial court disagreed and denied her motion. Hild appealed to the Second District Court of Appeals, which agreed in part, finding the application of the same-juror rule to the at-issue Interrogatories resulted in prejudice. Hospital then appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio. Chief Justice Kennedy, authoring the majority opinion and joined by Justices Fischer, DeWine, Donnelly, and Deters, reversed the judgment of the Second District in part holding that the same-juror rule applies in all negligence cases in which the jury answers sequential interrogatories that separate the elements of negligence to reach a general verdict. The same three-fourths of jurors therefore must concur on all elements of negligence for a verdict finding a defendant liable to be valid.  

Ergo, the Court declined to permit the use of interrogatories incorporating the any-juror rule in negligence actions. Justice Kennedy explained that, as a matter of principle, the same-juror rule exists because certain issues are so inseparable or interdependent that it would be illogical to allow jurors who do not agree with the majority on one issue to vote on subsequent related issues as if they agreed with the majority. It’s adoption by courts has therefore sought to prevent unreliable and invalid jury verdicts. The Court thus established that plaintiffs, including those preferable to the application of the any-juror rule, are not deprived of their right to have a full jury deliberate on the elements of their claim when interrogatories are structured according to the same-juror rule.  

Ultimately, the Ohio Constitution remains unaltered: a valid verdict requires the concurrence of at least three-fourths of jurors. The Hild Court, however, has now further defined relative jurisprudence in a manner favorable to Ohio care providers and litigants engaged in the defense of negligence claims generally. It would serve defense counsel well to familiarize themselves with the Hild Court’s ruling, and the rationale upon which it is based. In a legal landscape increasingly defined by nuclear jury verdicts, the ruling represents a much-welcomed arrow to add to the quiver of defense counsel seeking to foreclose the risk of an unreliable verdict.  

Please contact Doug P. Holthus at doug.holthus@fmglaw.com or Spencer M. Sukel at spencer.sukel@fmglaw.com, lawyers in Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP’s Columbus and Cleveland offices for assistance defending claims for negligence.