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Abstract

Cyr v. Michaud, a civil suit to recover for personal injuries, was tried before a jury and resulted in a verdict which included specific answers to five interrogatories. After a unanimous verdict for the plaintiff was entered and the jury was discharged, the defendant obtained affidavits from all of the jurors which indicated that the jury had made a mistake. The trial court rejected a motion to correct the error and the defendant appealed. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, ruled that juror affidavits are not admissible to correct errors in the recording of verdicts. The Law Court reached the proper result, but the language of the opinion is excessively broad. In an attempt to reaffirm the rule accepted since Lord Mansfield's time that a juror may not impeach his own verdict, the court ignored a well-established exception to that rule—juror affidavits may be admitted to correct a clerical error made in recording a verdict. The Law Court in Cyr v. Michaud failed to recognize the distinction between a case in which a clerical error is made and one in which the jurors simply misunderstand the law or the facts as presented to them. In the latter case juror evidence is not admissible to correct mistakes. Applicable case law suggests, however, that juror affidavits should be admitted to correct clerical errors. If certain safeguards are employed, there is no reason to overrule the case law allowing this exception. The Michaud ruling should therefore be limited to its facts. As a result trial courts should be free to follow earlier Law Court decisions allowing trial courts to determine whether clerical errors exist by reviewing juror affidavits and allowing such courts to order new trials rather than force the parties to accept an unintended result.

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