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Plaintiff's Counsel's Misconduct Gets New Trial for Company

By Shari Allison

Whittenburg v. Werner Enterprises, 2009 WL 884616 (4/3/09) (Published) - A civil case , but should be useful in prosecutorial misconduct arguments on appeal. Once again a big company facing money damages seemingly gets more protection than a defendant facing the loss of liberty. Counsel's closing argument that included reading from an imaginary letter from the company to the traffic victim's daughters placing the jurors in the victim's family's shoes, introducing evidence not in the trial record and excoriating the defendant for defending itself, [over defense objections] was so prejudicial as to warrant reversal of a multi-million dollar damage award. Helpfully, the 10th says:"the d. ct.'s discretion regarding granting a new trial is not boundless...continue to full post

Full post as published by Tenth Circuit Blog on April 07, 2009 (boomark / email).