Jury decision final

Maher v. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Company of Canada, Limited, 2010 ONCA 517 is an odd case.

After the jury dismissed a claim on a slip and fall case they came back to court the next day. Apparently the entire jury returned to the courthouse and lined up at the jury room door. When asked by court staff what they were doing there, one answered that they were there to count or calculate the money. When told that they had returned a no liability verdict and that the plaintiff would receive no money, it was reported that they looked stunned.

The plaintiff, unsurprisingly, suggested that there was a problem and the jury should have been questioned and any error in dismissing the claim corrected.

The Court of Appeal said "no" -- once the verdict is in (subject to minor exceptions) the jury is functus and not able to change or correct its verdict.

The Court held:

[30]          What is clear from the extensive discussions and analyses together with the results in Head and Burke, is that there is no jurisdiction either in criminal or civil cases for the court to make inquiries of a jury post-discharge where the nature of the possible jury error requires further deliberations by a jury to clarify or modify the verdict as it was decided and recorded. The examples in civil cases where a jury verdict was amended after the jury was discharged involve correcting an error in the recording or transmission of the verdict already rendered by the jury such as the 80/20 liability split reversal in McCulloch. Where the jury may have misunderstood the effect of its verdict or the instructions of the trial judge, and would need to have further deliberations to reconsider the verdict, the law is clear that in that case, there is no jurisdiction in the court to make inquiries or to allow the jury to reconsider the verdict if this occurs after it has been discharged. Of course, if such an error is discovered before the jury is discharged, then the court is not functus and it may send the jury back for further deliberations.