Lowell Lundstrom, Jr. v. Watts Guerra LLP, No. 22-1579 (8th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiff filed suit against Homolka, Homolka P.A., Watts Guerra, and Watts, alleging he is owed (1) $10,000 per month as leasing payments from October 2015, the first month he stopped receiving payments, until the September 2017 settlement; (2) a promised $50,000 truck reimbursement; and (3) a $3.4 million bonus. The jury returned a unanimous verdict for Plaintiff, finding that Homolka breached the oral contract, acting as an agent of Homolka P.A. and Watts Guerra. The jury awarded $175,000 in compensatory damages with no prejudgment interest. The district court denied Watts Guerra’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and Plaintiff’s motion for a new trial. Watts Guerra and Plaintiff cross-appealed these rulings.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court held that it agreed with the district court that the jury reasonably found Watts Guerra liable on an ostensible agency theory for Homolka’s breaches of the contract underlying the jury’s award of $175,000 in compensatory damages. The court reasoned that in considering these issues, “we start with the assumption jurors fulfilled their obligation to decide the case correctly,” and “we defer second to the trial court, which has a far better sense of what the jury likely was thinking and also whether there is any injustice in allowing the verdict to stand.” Applying these deferential standards, the court wrote that it has no difficulty concluding the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Plaintiff’s motion for a new trial. The jury verdict awarding $175,000 compensatory damages was neither inadequate nor the product of an inappropriate compromise.
Court Description: [Loken, Author, with Erickson and Kobes, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Contracts. A reasonable jury could find that defendant was bound on an ostensible agency theory by its litigation partner's promise to pay plaintiff $10,000 a month for the term of months for his work in signing up clients; similarly, the jury could also find that defendant was bound by the litigation partner's promise, as apparent agent, to pay plaintiff $50,000 for a new truck to accomplish his work on defendant's behalf; the jury did not err in finding a third promise to pay plaintiff a $3.4 million non-discretionary bonus was not included in the oral contract between plaintiff and the litigation partner; claim that the award was inadequate rejected as there was an obvious basis for the compensatory damage award.
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