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Juries (Civil) - Answers. Henry v. Zaitlen
In Henry v. Zaitlen (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal considered a medical malpractice appeal, here from a civil jury trial.
Here the court considers appellate SOR principles applicable to civil jury 'answers' to questions posed by the court:(1) The principles applicable to review of a jury’s answers
[44] Just as the level of deference given to civil jury verdicts is exceptionally high, any explanation provided by the jury for its conclusions “should be given the fullest possible effect and supported, if possible, by any reasonable construction”: Stillwell, at para. 34; see also Cheung, at para. 50. An appellate court may intervene only when a jury’s answers “cannot in law provide a foundation for a judgment”: Cheung, at para. 48, citing McLean v. Knox, 2013 ONCA 357, 2 D.L.R. (4th) 664, at para. 20. The jury’s explanation should be assessed in the context of the competing theories advanced by the parties, as well as the evidence, the trial judge’s characterization of the parties’ positions, and their instructions to the jury: Sacks, at para. 154.
[45] In accordance with these principles, the focus of a reviewing court should be whether the jury’s explanation, read generously and contextually, reflects findings supported by the evidence. Civil juries are presumed to understand and properly apply the instructions provided by trial judges, and their explanation of their verdict is presumptively the result of a proper consideration of the evidence and the issues and adherence to the legal instructions provided in the trial judge’s charge: Cheung, at para. 49. In Stilwell, at para. 36, this court endorsed Laskin C.J.C.’s admonition to appellate courts in Wade v. C.N.R, 1977 CanLII 194 (SCC), [1978] 1 S.C.R. 1064, at pp. 1069-1070, even though he was in dissent on that case:Appeal Courts do not fine-comb jury answers but accord them the respect of a common sense interpretation even where there may be some ambiguity in the answers … It is always timely to be reminded that juries do not write reasons for judgment, and their answers must be taken against the background of the evidence from which they are entitled to select, without manifesting their selection, what is credible, what is significant, what is persuasive to them. … It is one thing to interfere with a jury’s verdict where there is simply no evidence to support its findings or to support a critical one; it is a different thing, and not to be encouraged, to interfere with its findings where there is evidence, however slight, on which they may be based, but where because of offsetting evidence a question of credit and weight arises. These are matters for the jury alone. [46] A civil jury’s verdict should accordingly not be set aside simply because its explanation is cursory, inelegant, even somewhat ambiguous. Jurors are lay persons “who cannot be expected to craft reasons with the detail expected of the judiciary”: Cheung, at para. 67.
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[57] An appellate court should presume that the jury considered the evidence and heeded the judge’s instructions. If I were to accept the appellant’s interpretation of the jury’s answers, I would have to conclude that the jury ignored the trial judge’s summary and instructions, the evidence, and the parties’ arguments, in favour of a theory of the case that was not supported, argued, or even referred to during the trial. There is no basis to do so here.
[58] A civil jury’s answers must be read generously, contextually, and in a way that gives effect to its verdict, if reasonably possible. Here, the jury’s explanation of its findings and reasoning on the standard of care and causation is reasonable if read holistically. I accordingly reject the appellant’s proposed interpretation of the answers.
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