Benedict v. Northern Pipeline Construction

44 S.W.3d 410, 2001 Mo. App. LEXIS 680, 2001 WL 408776
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 24, 2001
DocketNos. WD 58007, WD 58019
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 44 S.W.3d 410 (Benedict v. Northern Pipeline Construction) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Benedict v. Northern Pipeline Construction, 44 S.W.3d 410, 2001 Mo. App. LEXIS 680, 2001 WL 408776 (Mo. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

ELLIS, Presiding Judge.

Respondent Heather A. Benedict filed suit against Appellant Northern Pipeline seeking damages for injuries she sustained in a fall when a sink hole developed in a flush-filled excavation area of the sidewalk near her home. The case was tried to a jury in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, and Ms. Benedict was awarded a judgment in the amount of $275,000. Northern Pipeline brings this appeal.

The following is a summary of the facts viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict. In the summer of 1996, Appellant excavated a portion of the sidewalk on Ms. Benedict’s street in St. Joseph, Missouri in order to perform work on the gas pipelines located thereunder. While the hole was open, Appellant maintained a barricade around the area. After the work on the gas pipelines was completed, Appellant “flush-filled” the hole with compacted dirt and gravel and removed the barricades.

About a week after Appellant flush-filled the hole and removed the barricades, Ms. Benedict left her house to put up garage sale signs in her neighborhood. On the way back to her house, Ms. Benedict walked over the flush-filled portion of the sidewalk, which appeared to be compacted and level. However, when she stepped on that portion of the sidewalk, a sink-hole developed and caused Ms. Benedict to fall on her backside. As a result of the fall, Ms. Benedict sustained a fractured and displaced coccyx in addition to minor injuries to several other parts of her body. Subsequently, Ms. Benedict and her husband Raymond Benedict brought the instant action alleging negligence on the part of Appellant and Missouri Gas Energy. The jury returned a verdict for Ms. Benedict in the amount of $275,000 against Appellant, but found for defendant Missouri Gas Energy. Appellant prosecutes this appeal. Missouri Gas Energy is not a party to the appeal.

Appellant brings ten points on appeal. In its first point, Appellant claims the trial court erred in finding that Appellant waived two of its peremptory challenges by not making new selections after the court found that Appellant’s original selections were race-motivated. Appellant asserts that the trial court’s request that its attorney make different peremptory strikes was an attempt to force counsel to admit that he made racist choices. Appellant argues that counsel’s refusal to exercise his peremptory strikes on other jurors should not have been considered to be a waiver of those strikes by the trial court.

Appellant initially claims that the trial court violated § 494.480(1)1 which states “[i]n trials of civil causes each party shall be entitled to peremptorily challenge three jurors.” In this case, the trial court afforded Appellant the opportunity to challenge up to four jurors. When the court later found that two of Appellant’s challenges were impermissibly race-motivated, the court repeatedly offered to let Appellant exercise those two challenges in a race-neutral manner on other jurors. Appellant refused. The statute does not state that each party “must” or “shall” exercise three challenges; it merely gives the parties to a civil trial the right to do so. The fact that Appellant was entitled to challenge at least three jurors under § 494.480(1) does not prohibit Appellant from waiving that right. Accordingly, we [417]*417must examine whether the trial court properly determined that Appellant waived this statutory right.

The question of whether a waiver has occurred is one of fact and is established by the totality of the circumstances. State v. Powell, 798 S.W.2d 709, 713 (Mo. banc 1990). “[T]he trial court’s findings of fact concerning waiver will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous.” Id. “A finding is clearly erroneous if the reviewing court is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made based on an evaluation of the entire evidence.” State v. Johnson, 930 S.W.2d 456, 461 (Mo.App.W.D.1996).

During the course of argument on Ms. Benedict’s Batson challenge, the following exchange occurred:

The Court: I think the last time I had one of these was in a — my real problem is with Ms. Gee, where you mentioned she rendered a verdict in a civil case. So did Herman Branstetter, who is a white male, Juror No. 21. The point is, doing that kind of comparison and making those determinations, I have no record. And I don’t have any independent recollection of any nonverbal behavior of either Juror No. 10 or Juror No. 17.
I believe you have stated reasons as to Juror No. 32, but as to 10 and 17 I don’t believe those are race-neutral reasons. For that reason, I will ask you to reconsider your strikes ...
Mr. Merker: The court asked me to reconsider my position. For me to reconsider my position, I would be agreeing that I have made a racially-motivated strike and I refuse to do that because I didn’t.... But, with all due respect, for the court to ask me to reconsider is asking me to say I was racially motivated and I refuse to do so.
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The Court: You know, I have never had this situation before. I have actually had attorneys reconsider their strikes before.
Mr. Merker, for whatever reasons you have stricken these people, I have made a finding that your reasons are not race-neutral. I’m extremely bothered by strikes 10 and 17 because they are of people that you have not stated have said cr done anything, other than Ms. Gee saying that she returned a plaintiffs verdict or agreed to a plaintiffs verdict in a civil suit, where others have also returned verdicts for plaintiffs in civil suits who are not of a minority race.
[[Image here]]
So, again, I am asking you — and this is not any disparaging remark toward you — to reconsider your selections.
Mr. Merker: Judge, I hear you, and I’m sorry; but I’m not going to do it. The court will have to do whatever you have to do. I’m not going to, on this record, after 28 years of trying civil lawsuits and getting feelings out of jurors as to how they’re leaning based upon their impressions, how they act, what they do, how they shake their head, and having a relatively-successful trial practice, have this record reflect at this point in my career that I’m discriminating against anybody based upon their race. If the court thinks it’s inappropriate, I suggest that you declare a mistrial, bring us in a new panel, whatever you want to do, but I just refuse to change my strikes.

The following morning, the trial court announced:

I have had an opportunity to look at case law on the issue from yesterday, and I feel the law is pretty clear that if a party is given an opportunity to make peremptory strikes and chooses not to that they are deemed waived.
[418]*418Mr. Merker, I have given you two opportunities to make peremptory strikes, and you have rejected them both. So the position is to consider those waived, and under the law I’m required to pick the first 12 jurors that remain.

The trial court clearly found that two of Appellant’s initial strikes were race motivated and ruled against Appellant on Respondent’s Batson challenge.

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Bluebook (online)
44 S.W.3d 410, 2001 Mo. App. LEXIS 680, 2001 WL 408776, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benedict-v-northern-pipeline-construction-moctapp-2001.