Arceneaux v. Rosa

889 So. 2d 383, 4 La.App. 3 Cir. 1057, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 2970, 2004 WL 2806432
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 8, 2004
DocketNo. 04-1057
StatusPublished

This text of 889 So. 2d 383 (Arceneaux v. Rosa) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arceneaux v. Rosa, 889 So. 2d 383, 4 La.App. 3 Cir. 1057, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 2970, 2004 WL 2806432 (La. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

| .WOODARD, Judge.

Mr. Paul M. Arceneaux appeals the trial court’s judgment dismissing his battery claim against Mr. Roy De La Rosa and his negligence claim against Players Lake Charles, Inc. and Players Riverboat, L.L.C., which have merged into Players Lake Charles, L.L.C. (Players). We affirm.

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This appeal arises from an altercation between Mr. Arceneaux and Mr. Roy De La Rosa which occurred on the Players II casino boat on June 9, 1996. Both sustained injuries in the fight. Mr. Arcen-eaux filed suit against Mr. De La Rosa and the boat’s owners, Players. Mr. De La Rosa reconvened against Mr. Arceneaux and asserted a cross-claim against Players for indemnity or contribution if he should be found liable for any damages Mr. Ar-ceneaux sustained. Mr. Arceneaux and Mr. De La Rosa asserted that each committed an assault and/or battery on the other and that Players was negligent in providing inadequate security.

A jury found that both men had consented to the fight and, therefore, awarded neither party damages. It also found no fault on Players’ part in causing Mr. Arce-naux’s injuries. Thus, it awarded no damages. Mr. Arceneaux moved for a new trial and a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), both of which the trial court denied. He appeals, alleging that the trial court gave the jury erroneous instructions given a Louisiana Supreme Court case rendered days before trial of this matter and that the jury’s failure to assess fault against Players was manifestly erroneous.

Standard of Review

Mr. Arceneaux asserts that the trial court erred in refusing to grant his motion for a new trial or motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict because of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s abolition of the aggressor doctrine just days before trial. Because the jury instructions referenced the aggressor doctrine, he urges us to conduct a de novo review of the record. “When the trial court commits legal errors which 2interdict the jury’s factfinding process, the manifest error standard is not applicable [and,] [i]f the record is complete, the appellate court must undertake an inde[386]*386pendent de novo review.” 1 Thus, we must determine whether the jury instructions, in light of supreme court’s recent pronouncement abolishing the aggressor doctrine, interdicted the factfinding process.

Aggressor Doctrine

“[U]nder the aggressor doctrine, the plaintiff is deemed to have consented to the physical retaliation by provoking the defendant, thereby relieving the defendant of liability for any damages that may result.” 2 In Landry v. Bellanger,3 the Louisiana Supreme Court held that “the aggressor doctrine no longer has a place in Louisiana tort law.”4

Nonetheless, in reviewing that doctrine, the supreme court distinguished between the notion of consent, which is presumed under the aggressor doctrine, and the notion of lack of consent which is an element of battery. Specifically, the court stated:

Louisiana’s intentional tort doctrine has traditionally afforded an intentional tortfeasor a full defense if he can establish consent, privilege or self-defense, or enough provocation to trigger the aggressor doctrine; and a partial defense if the defendant can show a “merely verbal” provocation for a mitigation of damages.
Hence, the existence of consent means the defendant did not commit a tort and the existence of a privilege means the defendant’s tort was justified. Conversely, Louisiana’s aggressor and mitigation doctrines are victim-fault defenses. Neither theory implies that no tort has occurred or that the defendant’s conduct was justified, but instead seek to penalize the victim.... “On this analysis the percentage-fault approach should replace both the aggressor doctrine and the mitigation | adoctrine, while leaving the full defenses of consent and privilege intact.”5

Jury Instructions

In denying Mr. Areeneaux’s motions for a new trial and JNOV, the trial court found “[i]n an appropriate situation, it [Landry] may have affected the outcome of a case. It would not have affected the outcome of this case. So I’m not granting either the new trial or the judgment JNOV.” We must agree.

Adequate jury instructions must fairly and reasonably denote the issues and provide correct principles of law for the jury to apply to those issues.6 The adequacy of the jury instructions must be assessed in light of the instructions as a whole.7 An appellate court must exercise great restraint before overturning a jury verdict because the instructions were so erroneous as to be prejudicial.8 We may not ignore the manifest error standard of review unless the jury interrogatories are so inadequate or incorrect as to prevent the jury from basing its verdict on the law [387]*387and the facts.9 Viewing the instructions as a whole, we find nothing that constitutes reversible error.

The trial court instructed the jury, in pertinent part:

Paul M. Arceneaux has asserted a claim against Roy De La Rosa for the intentional tort of battery. Roy De La Rosa has counterclaimed against Paul M. Arceneaux for the same claim, intentional tort of battery. In both situations, the same standard applies. The basic standard applicable to Defendant is that he must refrain from intentional invasions of, or interference with, the physical integrity of the Plaintiff. By “intent” in this context, I mean the purpose or state of mind with which a person acts.
Intent means that the actor either (1) consciously desires the physical result of his actions or (2) knows that the result is substantially certain to follow from his actions. A Defendant who is guilty of an intentional tort is liable for all of the consequences of his actions, even those which he did not actually intend or which were not reasonably foreseeable.
RBattery is a harmful or offensive contact with a person resulting from an act intended to cause the Plaintiff to suffer such a contact, under circumstances in which the Defendant has no reason to suspect that the Plaintiff would consent to such a contact. Accordingly, if you find that the Defendant committed a battery [intentional tort] upon Plaintiff, but you also find that Plaintiff consented to the fight that produced the battery, then you must return a verdict for Defendant, unless you find that the force used by Defendant is not reasonably anticipated and is in excess of that necessary for self-defense. The use of such unnecessary and unanticipated force nullifies Plaintiffs consent and removes it as a bar to his recovery. Additionally, an aggressor is precluded from recovering damages which he incurs as a result of his own actions in provoking the altercation. (Emphasis added).

Even though the trial court included a one-sentence reference to the aggressor doctrine, it did not elaborate on its requirements of intentional provocation. Rather, the jury instruction, as a whole, informed the jury that if the Defendant committed a battery, but the Plaintiff consented to the fight, it must return a verdict for the Defendant unless he used unnecessary force. This is a correct statement of the law.

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889 So. 2d 383, 4 La.App. 3 Cir. 1057, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 2970, 2004 WL 2806432, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/arceneaux-v-rosa-lactapp-2004.