ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 1, 1997 TAG: 9702030025
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.
SOURCE: SCOTT HIAASEN COX NEWS SERVICE
THE $5.7 MILLION awarded to the woman with the bad back sure sounded like a lot. Who knew all those figures they pored over in the jury room would add up to that?
After awarding more than $5.7 million to a woman injured in a fender bender, jurors discussed their verdict at a downtown restaurant and uttered a collective oops.
Now, some of those jurors are hoping for what is known in schoolyard parlance as a do-over.
``We didn't realize how much we had given until the clerk read off the figures,'' said juror Mery Cardenas, 37, of West Palm Beach. ``We went across the street and sat down and said, `What have we done?'''
The jurors heard six days of testimony in the case of Carolyn Houss, a doctor of osteopathy from Palm Beach Gardens who was hurt after her car was hit in 1994 by a car driven by 19-year-old Marc Nathanson. The car was owned by Nathanson's father, Michael, a chiropractor and former Lake Worth City Commission candidate.
Though neither car was damaged, Houss, 42, suffered a herniated disc in her back that required surgery and still limits her mobility, said her attorney, Bob Montgomery.
On Jan. 14, the jurors deliberated for four hours and filled out a three-page form listing amounts to be given to Houss for lost earnings, past and future medical expenses, pain and suffering and other expenses. When it was all added up, they had given Houss $5,770,000, with another $100,000 going to her husband, Mitchell Marks, for lost companionship.
After the verdict was read in court, the clerk polled the jury of five women and one man, each of whom said the verdict was correct.
``We were supposed to be accountants,'' Cardenas now says.
Cardenas and another juror, Teresa Urzetta, said the jury's forewoman tallied the verdict, but never read the total aloud before they left the jury room. The forewoman, Marybeth Liptrot of Boca Raton, declined to comment Thursday.
Cardenas said the magnitude of the verdict didn't hit her until right after the trial, when another juror looked at her and said, ``I told you it was too much money.''
That night, Cardenas, Urzetta, Liptrot and another juror commiserated at the restaurant. The next day, Urzetta faxed a letter to Nathanson's lawyer, Robert Geisler, saying the jury never intended to give Houss such a large verdict.
``We feel we were `tricked' into the accounting figures, also by the sheet the jury was given to fill out,'' the note read.
Cardenas and Urzetta now want to take back their verdict - if they can - and Geisler is using Urzetta's fax to ask Circuit Judge Harold Cohen to interview all the jurors and grant a new trial. A hearing has not been scheduled.
The two jurors said they thought Cohen's instructions to the jury required them to give Houss a money award. In deliberations, they never considered giving nothing to Houss; instead, they tried to find a middle ground between what Montgomery asked for - upwards of $11 million - and Geisler's estimate of $200,000.
``We didn't think we had the option of writing zero,'' said Urzetta, 30, of Jupiter.
``How we came up with the figures I, to this day, haven't a clue,'' Cardenas said.
Cardenas and Urzetta also thought the jury would be asked to decide whether the car accident caused Houss' injury - something neither one believes. But before the case went to the jury, Cohen ruled that the plaintiffs had proven that point, leaving for the jury only the issue of damages.
``We thought the cause was taken out of our hands,'' Urzetta said.
In court papers, Geisler said ``cause is traditionally a question to be decided by the jury'' and said Cohen ignored the testimony of experts who said Houss' back injury was not apparent until months after the accident, which could mean she was injured later.
``I think the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to prove that she was injured in the accident,'' Geisler said.
But Montgomery says his case - including the testimony of Michael Nathanson's chiropractic partner, who examined Houss before she visited a doctor - showed that Houss had a protruding disc just days after the accident.
``If she didn't get the herniated disc from the automobile accident, where did she get it? There was no contradictory evidence,'' he said.
Montgomery also said he believes there are no legal grounds to grant a new trial.
``When the jury is polled, it's etched in granite,'' he said. ``They can't come back and say, `Oh, excuse me, I wish it was different.' It just isn't done.''
LENGTH: Medium: 91 linesby CNB