Starr Indemnity & Liability Co. v. American Claims Management, Inc.

131 F. Supp. 3d 185, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124379, 2015 WL 5474069
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedSeptember 17, 2015
DocketNo. 14-CV-0463 (JMF)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 131 F. Supp. 3d 185 (Starr Indemnity & Liability Co. v. American Claims Management, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Starr Indemnity & Liability Co. v. American Claims Management, Inc., 131 F. Supp. 3d 185, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124379, 2015 WL 5474069 (S.D.N.Y. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

JESSE M. FURMAN, District Judge.

This case, familiarity with which is assumed, arises but of a dispute between Plaintiff Starr Indemnity & Liability Company (“Starr”), an insurance company, and American Claims Management, Inc. (“ACM”), a third-party claims administrator for Starr, about whether ACM and two of its affiliates, Superior Recovery Services, Inc. (“SRS”) and Marquee Managed Care Solutions, Inc. (“Marquee”; together with SRS, the “Subsidiaries”; -and, collectively, the “Defendants”), improperly charged Starr for certain services that they claimed to have performed on Starr’s behalf. The case went to trial and, on May 26, 2015, after ten days of trial, a jury rendered a verdict in Starr’s favor, awarding Starr more than $1.6 million in compensatory dámages and $2.75 million in punitive damages. (Ct. Ex. 5 (Docket No. 138)). Judgment was entered on June 26, 2015. Defendants now move for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or, in the alternative, a new trial pursuant' to Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For the. reasons explained below, Defendants’ Rulé 50 motion is DENIED, but their Rule 59 motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. ,

LEGAL STANDARDS

Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “imposes a heavy burden on a movant, who will be awarded judgment as a matter, of law only when ‘a party has been fully heard on ah issue during a jury trial and the court finds that a reasonable jury would, not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on that issue.’ ” Cash v. Cnty. of Erie, 654 F.3d 324, 333 (2d Cir.2011) (quoting Fed. R.Civ.P. 50(a)(1)). According to the Second Circuit, the “burden is particularly heavy where, as here, the jury has deliberated in the case qnd actually returned its verdict in-favor of the non-movant.” Cash, 654 F.3d at 333 (internal quotation marks omitted). In such circumstances, a court may set aside the verdict only if, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-movant, “there exists .such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury’s findings could only have been the result of sheer surmise and [188]*188conjecture, or the evidence in favor of the movant is so overwhelming that reasonable and fair minded persons could not arrive at a verdict against it.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e.g., Zellner v. Summerlin, 494 F.3d 344, 371 (2d Cir.2007) (stating that a . Rule 50 motion may be granted only if the court concludes that “a reasonable juror would have been compelled to accept the view of the moving party” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Further, if a party failed to move for judgment as a matter of law, on the relevant issue before the case was submitted to the jury, the standard for granting a post-verdict motion “is elevated.” ING Glob. v. United Parcel Service Oasis Supply Corp., 757 F.3d 92, 97 (2d Cir.2014); see also Lore v. City of Syracuse, 670 F.3d 127, 152-53 (2d Cir.2012) (“A Rule 50(a) motion requesting judgment as a matter of law on one ground but omitting another is insufficient to preserve a JMOL argument based on the latter,”). In that circumstance, judgment as a matter of law “may not properly be granted by the district court ... except to prevent' manifest injustice. Manifest injustice exists where’a jury’s verdict is wholly without legal support.” ING Glob., 757 F.3d at 97 (citation omitted); accord Pahuta v. Massey-Ferguson, Inc., 170 F.3d 125, 129 (2d Cir.1999); see also Rothstein v. Carriere, 373 F.3d 275, 291 (2d Cir.2004).

The standard for granting a new trial under Rule 59 is less stringent, but still relatively high. See, e.g., Manley v. Am-Base Corp., 337 F.3d 237, 244-45 (2d Cir.2003). Specifically, a court may grant a motion for a new trial where the'verdict is against the weight of the evidence, and need not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party; instead, the court may weigh the evidence — including the credibility of witnesses — independently. See Manley, 337 F.3d at 244-45. Nevertheless, a “decision is against the weight of the evidence if and only if the verdict is (1) seriously erroneous or (2) a miscarriage of justice.” Raedle v. Credit Agricole Indosuez, 670 F.3d 411, 417-18 (2d Cir.2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). And while a judge evaluating a motion for a new trial may weigh witness credibility, he or she must do so “with caution and great restraint, as a judge should rarely disturb a jury’s evaluation of a witness’s credibility and may not freely substitute his or her assessment of the credibility of witnesses for that of the jury simply because the judge disagrees with the jury.” Id. at 418 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In fact, the Court of Appeals has cautioned that “where ... a verdict is predicated almost entirely on the jury’s assessments of credibility, such a verdict generally should not be disturbed except in an egregious case, to correct a seriously erroneous result, or to prevent a miscarriage of justice.” Id. at 418-19; accord ING Glob., 757 F.3d at 99; Metromedia Co. v. Fugazy, 983 F.2d 350, 363 (2d Cir.1992). As the Court has explained, if a finding “turned to a large extent on the credibility of the witnesses who testified before the jury, the finding and the verdict which followed are particularly ill-suited to after-the-fact second guessing.” ING Glob., 757 F.3d at 99.

DISCUSSION

In their motion, Defendants raise a number of arguments that the Court has previously — and repeatedly — rejected, including that New York law applies to Starr’s claims for punitive damages (Defs.’ Mem. Law Supp'. Renewed Mot. Judgment Matter Law Or New Trial (Docket No. 169) (“Defs.’ Mem.”) 15-16), that Starr cannot recover punitive damages on its tort claims because they “arise .from contract” (id. 14-15), that Starr’s conversion claims are duplicative of its‘contract claims (id. 20-21), and that the Court erred in granting Starr’s motion to amend (id 23-[189]*18925). (See, e.g., Tr. 1103-07 (deciding the choice of law question); Tr. 1096 (finding that the tort claims are independent from the -contract claim); Docket No. 108 (making clear that the Court would not consider Judge Cote’s ruling on Starr’s motion to amend)).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
131 F. Supp. 3d 185, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124379, 2015 WL 5474069, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/starr-indemnity-liability-co-v-american-claims-management-inc-nysd-2015.