St. Mary's Honor Center v Hicks Brief Amici Curiae
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October 1, 1992

18 pages
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Brief Collection, LDF Court Filings. Roush v KFC National Management Company Brief for the Respondent in Opposition, 1994. c1bc4a5b-c39a-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/15a25fe5-63cb-46eb-ae02-fb696d069c6d/roush-v-kfc-national-management-company-brief-for-the-respondent-in-opposition. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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No. 93-1711 I n T h e iutjtn'mi' (Emtrt nf Hit Huttrft B M pb O c t o b e r T e r m , 1994 B e t t y R o u sh , Petitioner,v. KFC N a t io n a l M a n a g e m e n t C o m pa n y , ________ Respondent. On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit B R IE F FOR THE RESPO NDENT IN OPPOSITION Stanley Weiner J ones, Day, Reavis & P ogue 2300 Trammell Crow Center 2001 Ross Avenue Dallas, Texas 75201 (214) 220-3939 Steven T. Catlett (Counsel of Record) Sarah L. W anner J ones, Day, Reavis & P ogue 1900 Huntington Center 41 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 (614) 469-3939 Counsel for Respondent KFC National Management Company W il s o n - E p e s p r in t in g C o . , In c . - 7 8 9 -0 0 9 6 - W a s h in g t o n , D .C . 20001 QUESTIONS P R ESE N T E D (1) Whether this Court should grant certiorari to ad dress an alleged Seventh Amendment issue that was not mentioned by the parties, or by the Court below, which resolved this Age Discrimination in Employment case by ruling, as a matter of law, that an equitable award of front pay was not permissible? (2) Whether the Court of Appeals erred in ruling that Petitioner’s proof on the state law tort of outrage was legally insufficient, where Petitioner does not contend that the Court applied an incorrect standard for proof of outrage and where the formulation of that standard is entirely consistent with the formulation contained in the instructions given to the jury? (i) TABLE OF CONTENTS Page QUESTIONS PRESENTED ............................................ i TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .......................................... iv STATEMENT...................................................................... 1 REASONS FOR DENYING THE WRIT ..................... 5 I. THIS CASE PRESENTS NO SEVENTH AMENDMENT ISSUE SUITABLE FOR RE VIEW ....................... ,............................................... 6 II. THE STANDARD APPLIED BY THE COURT OF APPEALS IN OVERTURNING THE OUT RAGE AWARD DOES NOT PRESENT AN ISSUE FOR THIS COURT................................. 12 CONCLUSION..................................................................... 14 (iii) Cases TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page 3Craft v. Rice, 671 S.W.2d 247 (Ky. 1984)................ Davis v. Combustion Engineering, Inc., 742 F.2d 916 (6th Cir. 1984) ............ ................................. 3 Denison v. SWACO Gelograph Co., 941 F.2d 1416 (10th Cir. 1991)... ............... 7 Dominic v. Consolidated Edison Co., 822 F.2d 1249 (2d Cir. 1987) ......... 7 Fairmount Glass Works v. Cub Fork Coal Co., 287 U.S. 474 (1933) ....................................................9,10,12 Gibson v. Mohaivk Rubber Co., 695 F.2d 1093 (8th Cir. 1982) ..................................................... 7 Goldstein v. Manhattan Industries, Inc., 758 F.2d 1435 (11th Cir.), cert, denied, 474 U.S. 1005 (1985) ........................................................................ 7 Grunenthal v. Long Island Railroad Co., 393 U.S. 156 (1968) ....... .......................................................6, 8,11 Hansard v. Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co., 865 F.2d 1461 (5th Cir.), cert, denied, 493 U.S. 842 (1989) ....................................................................... Herencia v. Guzman, 219 U.S. 44 (1911) _______ Humana of Kentucky, Inc. v. Seitz, 796 S.W.2d 1 (Ky. 1990) .............................................................. 4 Lincoln v. Power, 151 U.S. 436 (1894) ................... 9 Maxfield v. Sinclair Infl, 766 F.2d 788 (3d Cir. 1985), cert, denied, 474 U.S. 1057 (1986) _____ 7 Neese v. Southern Railway Co., 350 U.S. 77 (1955)....................................................................... 6,8,11 New York Central & Hudson River R.R. Co. v. Fraloff, 100 U.S. 24 (1879) ............................. . 8, 9-10 New York, Lake Erie & Western R.R. Co. v. Win ter, 143 U.S. 60 (1892)......................................... 8-9,13 Phelan v. Local 305, 973 F.2d 1050 (2d Cir. 1992), cert, denied, 113 S.Ct. 1415 (1993)....................... 10-11 Phoenix Ry. Co. v. Landis, 231 U.S. 578 (1913).... 8 Southern Ry.-Carolina Division v. Bennett, 233 U.S. 80 (1914) ........................................................ 8, 9 St. Louis, I.M. & S.R. Co. v. Craft, 237 U.S. 648 (1915) ....................................................................... 8 00 - q V Page TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued Texas & Pacific R.R. Co. v. Hill, 237 U.S. 208 (1915) ....................................................................... 8 Wabash Ry. Co. v. McDaniels, 107 U.S. 454 (1883) ....................................................................... 9 Wildman v. Lerner Stores Corp., 771 F.2d 605 (1st Cir. 1985) .................................. Wilson v. Everett, 139 U.S. 616 (1891) Statutes Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. §§621 et seq. ...... .....passim I n T h e ia tjtn w OInml uf % MmtpJi States O c t o b e r T e r m , 1994 No. 93-1711 B e t t y R o u sh , Petitioner, KFC N a t io n a l M a n a g e m e n t C o m pa n y , ________ Respondent. On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit B R IE F FOR THE RESPONDENT IN OPPOSITION STA TEM EN T Petitioner, a former employee of Respondent KFC National Management Company (“KFC”), brought claims against Respondent under the Age Discrimination in Em ployment Act ( “ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq., and Kentucky tort law of outrage.1 After the case had been removed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, it was set for trial before a jury in March, 1991. The parties tendered proposed jury instructions to the Court in late February, 1991. Petitioner’s proffered ADEA damage instruction would have permitted the jury 1 Pursuant to Rule 29.1, the Court is advised that Respondent KFC National Management Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc., which is a publicly-owned corporation. 2 to award, inter alia, the “amount of . . . future lost salary to the date that you believe [Petitioner] will stop working in the future,” and would have advised the jury that “[t]his instruction allows you to award . . . front pay, that is the payments [Petitioner] would have from the date of the trial until her retirement age.” See Plaintiffs’ Tendered Jury Instructions, No. B 12. The trial judge (the Honorable Thomas A. Ballantine, Jr.), however, rejected this instruction. Instead, the sole instruction that the Court gave the jury on the issue of ADEA damages spoke only in the past tense, calling for the jury to award “damages for lost income and benefits which she incurred as a result of her discharge.” Trial Tr. at 563 (emphasis added). The Court further instructed the jury that it should sustain the claim of outrage if Petitioner proved that Respondent “by extreme and outrageous conduct inten tionally or recklessly caused severe emotional distress to her.” Id. At trial, evidence regarding the amount of ADEA damages was offered only by Petitioner, and consisted of testimony by Petitioner’s accountant as well as Petition er’s own testimony as to her interim earnings, social secu rity benefits, and retirement benefits. On appeal, Petitioner could point to no record evidence inconsistent with the fact that the back pay component of her proof of ADEA damages totalled precisely $24,386. The jury, however, returned an award for Petitioner of $100,000 on the ADEA claim, and an additional amount on the outrage claim. Respondent moved for j.n.o.v. and/or for a new trial, contending, inter alia, that the ADEA damage award necessarily and improperly included a substantial “front pay” component. Respondent also argued that, because the record failed to establish conduct by Respondent that was a “ ‘deviation from all reasonable bounds of decency [or] utterly intolerable in a civilized community,’ ” Peti 3 tioner had failed to satisfy the stringent requirements under Kentucky law for showing outrage. See Defend ant’s Memorandum in Support of Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict or, in the Alternative, for a New Trial, at 8-9, 20-21 (quoting Craft v. Rice, 671 S.W. 2d 247, 250 (Ky. 1984)). Petitioner responded by con tending that “front pay is not only proper, it is man dated”; and that “the conduct which [she had] endured . . . was consistent, long lasting, reprehensible, emotion ally devastating, unacceptable in a civilized society, was far outside the bounds of decency and has physical as well as emotional impact.” See Plaintiff Betty Roush’s Response to Defendant’s Motion for Judgment Notwith standing the Verdict and New Trial, at 19, 30. (Empha sis added.) U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson2 denied KFC’s request for post-trial relief on the ADEA damage and outrage issues. With respect to damages, the District Court ruled that “[f]ront pay, back pay, and various bene fits identified could all properly be considered by the jury in reaching its verdicts,” and accordingly upheld the award on the premise that “there is some basis in the record for the damage award.” Pet. App. 26a. As for the outrage claim, Judge Simpson concluded that there had been legally sufficient evidence presented that KFC’s conduct was “so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society.” Pet. App. 28a. Respondent appealed both rulings; the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. With respect to the ADEA damages, the Court of Appeals observed that, under Davis v. Combustion Engineering, Inc., 742 F.2d 916, 923 (6th Cir. 1984), “determination of the propriety of an award of front pay is a matter for the court,” in its “sound discretion.” Pet. App. 10a. 2 Trial Judge Ballantine died before Respondent’s post-trial motion had been decided. 4 Then, the Court of Appeals concurred with KFC that “the [damage] award must have included front pay, be cause even Roush’s own evidence justified a back pay award totalling only $24,386.” Pet. App. 8a. The Court of Appeals also agreed with KFC that the trial court’s instructions to the jury had not authorized the jury to make an award of front pay. Pet. App. 10a. Further concluding that, “as a matter of law, front pay was not appropriate in this case,” the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for entry of judgment in the amount of $24,386, stating that it “could not condone the ex post facto determination made by the district court in this case” in “approving] an apparent award of front pay by the jury” after having “previously refused to give a front pay instruction to the jury.” Pet. App. 12a-14a. The Court of Appeals also reversed the District Court’s denial of j.n.o.v. on the outrage claim. See Pet. App. 14a-16a. After noting that “the standard for proving liability for this tort is particularly stringent,” it then cited a requirement that, to show extreme and outrageous conduct, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant’s conduct has gone “beyond ‘all possible bounds of de cency.’ ” Pet. App. 15a (citing Humana of Kentucky, Inc. v. Seitz, 796 S.W.2d 1, 3 (Ky. 1990)). This “bounds of decency” language was essentially the same formulation of the relevant standard that had been set forth in the District Court’s ruling on j.n.o.v., and it had been quoted approvingly in Petitioner’s appellate brief. Applying the standard, the Court of Appeals con cluded that Respondent’s actions “[e]ven when considered in their totality . . . do not amount to ‘extreme and out rageous conduct’ justifying imposition of liability.” Pet. App. 15a. Armed with new counsel, Petitioner now seeks a writ of certiorari in this Court, contending for the first time that the Seventh Amendment prohibited the review and result afforded in the Court of Appeals with respect to the ADEA damage award, and that the formulation of the legal standard used by the Court of Appeals in re versing the denial of j.n.o.v. on the outrage claim im permissibly conflicted with the formulation contained in the relevant jury instruction. REASONS FOR DENYING THE W RIT The Petition identifies two issues that Petitioner be lieves this Court may have some interest in resolving: whether the Seventh Amendment permits a Court of Appeals to review and remit a jury award previously deemed not excessive by the trial court; and whether an appellate court engaging in a review of the sufficiency of the evidence is bound by a legally erroneous jury instruction to which the defendant made no objection. But notwithstanding the ingenuity of Petitioner’s new lawyers, these issues, and Petitioner’s case, simply do not match. Despite the repackaging effort contained in the Petition, certiorari should be denied on the ground that the issues proffered are not clearly presented here and were never litigated below. If they are of interest, they deserve an appropriate case for deciding them. This is not that case. With respect to the Seventh Amendment argument, Petitioner cites a number of very old decisions from this Court stating that trial court decisions denying motions for a new trial based on purported excessiveness of the verdict are not reviewable. Those cases, however, in volved an attempt to have an appellate court reweigh the facts, not, as here, a reversal by a Court of Appeals for legal error. None of them, accordingly, suggests that the Seventh Amendment insulates the legal error com mitted by the trial court here— i.e., failing to disallow the jury’s front pay award—from the review and relief af forded below. Indeed, these cases affirmatively approve review of erroneous instructions and non-conforming verdicts. No Seventh Amendment issue was litigated be low and none is implicit in the record. 5 6 Likewise, this case does not present the issue Peti tioner seeks to raise concerning a deviation between the formulation of the legal standard used by the Court of Appeals in reversing the outrage award, and that used in the jury instructions. The formulations are not mean ingfully distinguishable; indeed, Petitioner has implicitly acknowledged as much by using throughout this litiga tion the same formulation adopted by the Court of Ap peals. The Court should leave the issue that the Petition attempts to raise for a case in which it is actually presented. I. TH IS CA SE P R E SE N T S NO SEV EN T H AM END M ENT ISSU E SU IT A B LE FOR R EV IEW Petitioner claims that certiorari should issue based on the Seventh Amendment question that this Court raised, but left open, in Grunenthal v. Long Island Railroad Co., 393 U.S. 156 (1968), and Neese v. Southern Railway Co., 350 U.S. 77 (1955)— namely, whether an appellate court can review and remit a trial court’s ruling upholding a verdict as not excessive. That issue, however, plainly is not presented by this case. Neither the parties, nor the Courts below, ever mentioned the Seventh Amendment in this litigation prior to the filing of the Petition, even though the review of the front pay award undertaken by the Court of Appeals could not have come as a surprise— the Court of Appeals’ ruling afforded Respondent the precise result and relief it had sought in the appeal.3 As argued and decided below, this case is about the District Court’s legal error in permitting the judgment to 8 See KFC’s Brief 14 (contending that verdict should have been conformed to Judge Ballantine’s jury instructions, which foreclosed an award of front pay) ; id., 16 (asserting and demonstrating that “Roush’s back pay can be precisely calculated from her own testi mony and that of her expert as a total of $24,386”) ; KFC’s Reply Brief 10 (stating that the evidence supports a back pay award of no more than $24,386 and that “The Court should order a specific reduction of $75,614”). 7 include a front pay award. First, Respondent argued below, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that front pay is an equitable remedy and its availability is a question for the court, and not the jury, to decide. In so ruling, the Court below followed the approach uniformly taken by each of the judicial circuits to address the issue.4 * Not surprisingly, then, Petitioner does not challenge this hold ing that the threshold availability of front pay is a purely legal issue. Next, the Court of Appeals proceeded to apply this established rule on the availability of front pay to the particular facts at hand. Based largely on the fact that Petitioner quickly obtained another job at a com parable salary, the Court of Appeals held that, as a mat ter of law, no award of front pay was appropriate. Once again, Petitioner does not challenge this holding. Thus, the Petition does not challenge either of the Court of Appeals’ front pay holdings. Instead, in seeking to create a Seventh Amendment issue, the Petition con tends that the Court of Appeals was powerless to review and rectify the trial court’s front pay rulings once that Court had denied Respondent’s post-trial motion, leaving the jury’s verdict intact. It is hard to see how, in ad dressing the purely legal issue of eligibility for front pay, the Court of Appeals could possibly have created a Seventh Amendment issue. And, indeed, none of Pe titioner’s authorities even remotely suggest that a refusal to grant post-trial relief erects a constitutional barrier 4 See, e.g., Wildman v. Lerner Stores Corp., 771 F.2d 605, 616 (1st Cir. 1985) ; Dominic v. Consolidated Edison Co., 822 F.2d 1249, 1257 (2d Cir. 1987) ; Maxfield v. Sinclair Int’l, 766 F.2d 788, 796 (3d Cir. 1985), cert, denied, 474 U.S. 1057 (1986); Hansard v. Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co., 865 F.2d 1461, 1470 (5th Cir.), cert, denied, 493 U.S. 842 (1989) ; Gibson v. Mohawk Rubber Co., 695 F.2d 1093, 1100-01 (8th Cir. 1982); Denison v. SWACO Geolo- graph Co., 941 F.2d 1416, 1425-26 (10th Cir. 1991) ; Goldstein v. Manhattan Industries, Inc., 758 F.2d 1435, 1448 (11th Cir.), cert, denied, 474 U.S. 1005 (1985). Only the District of Columbia Cir cuit has not addressed the issue. 8 insulating a judgment from review and correction of legal error. The complete absence of any discussion of the Seventh Amendment in the proceeding below— as well as Peti tioner’s failure to preserve any Seventh Amendment is sue— are themselves fatal to the Petition. But even had these issues been raised, they are wholly inapposite to the Court of Appeals’ disposition of this case, as is evi dent from the contrast between the ruling below and the authorities that Petitioner contends (Pet. 7-9 & n.16) create the Seventh Amendment issue identified in Grunen- thal and Neese. Specifically, Petitioner’s authorities stand for the un remarkable proposition that an appellate court should be wary of inferring that a trial court has erred in rejecting a weight-of-the-evidence challenge to a jury’s determination of a disputed factual issue.5 They acknowl- 6 6 See, e.g., New York Central & Hudson River R.R. Co. v. Fralojf, 100 U.S. 24, 31-32 (1879) (“our authority does not extend to a re examination of facts which have been tried by the jury under in structions correctly defining’ the legal rights of parties.” ) ; Southern Ry.-Carolina Division v. Bennett, 233 U.S. 80 (1914) (where verdict “excess did not appear as a m atter of law” but instead “upon the evidence,” reexamination by this Court of the size of the verdict was improper, since “ [t]he premises of the argument for the plaintiff in error were not conclusive upon the jury, and . . . no such error appears as to warrant our imputing to judge and jury a connivance in escaping the limits of the law.” ) ; Texas & Pacific R.R. Co. v. Hill, 237 U.S. 208 (1915) (following Bennett) ; St. Louis, I.M. & S.R. Co. v. Craft, 237 US. 648 (1915) (amount awarded for pain and suffering not open for reconsideration for excessiveness, as this issue involved a question of fact) ; Phoenix Ry. Co. v. Landis, 231 U.S. 578, 582 (1913) (where “ [t]he argu ment, in substance, is that the verdict was without sufficient basis in the evidence,” but where “ [i] t cannot be said that there was no evidence to go to the jury[,] an objection that the verdict is against the weight of evidence or that damages allowed were excessive cannot be considered in this court”) ; Herencia v. Guzman, 219 U.S. 44 (1911) (sam e); Neiv York, Lake Erie & Western R.R. Co. v. Winter, 143 U.S. 60 (1892) (this Court had no jurisdiction on 9 edge the obvious point that errors of law— expressly in cluding a trial court’s erroneous instructions, or, as here, a verdict in clear contravention of proper instructions— are not subject to this rule, whether on review of denial of a motion for new trial or otherwise. See Fairmount Glass Works v. Cub Fork Coal Co., 287 U.S. 474, 482-84 (1933). Rather than suggesting, as does the Petition (Pet. 12-14), that a Court of Appeals cannot construe and consider the propriety of jury instructions and the jury’s compliance with them, these cases typically preface their refusals to disturb a judgment below with a comment that, after careful review, the Court has determined that the jury was properly instructed. E.g., Bennett, 233 U.S. at 86; Fraloff, 100 U.S. at 30-33; Lincoln v. Power, 151 U.S. 436, 438 (1894).6 In this case, the Court of Appeals did not purport to determine that the weight of the evidence, as a matter of fact, showed the verdict to have been excessive. Compare, e.g., Fairmount Glass, 287 U.S. at 482-84 (noting that evidence was voluminous and conflicting, and that de fendant had pleaded several defenses and a counterclaim, in refusing to disturb jury award as inadequate); Fraloff, 100 U.S. at 30-33 (noting, in rejecting attack on verdict * 6 writ of error to decide questions of fact, or consider the weight to be given to evidence properly admitted) ; Wilson v. Everett, 139 U.S. 616 (1891) (no review on writ of error of amount of verdict, where “ [t]he case was fairly submitted to the jury, and the issues involved were passed upon by them”) ; Wabash Ry. Co. v. McDaniels, 107 U.S. 454 (1883) (court lacks authority to disturb damage award as excessive because “our power is restricted to the determination of questions of law arising upon the record”). 6 Petitioner’s argument for deference to the district court’s read ing of the jury instructions (e.g., Pet. 12, contending that “ [t]he District Court was particularly well situated to recognize the mean ing of its jury instructions, and to realize how the jury would have understood them”) is especially inappropriate here, where the district judge who tried the case and instructed the jury has died and a new judge unfamiliar with the case was asked to rule on the post-trial motion. 10 as excessive, that “the evidence, in some of its aspects, placed the [amount of damages] very far in excess of [the] amount” awarded by the jury). Rather than en gaging in the prohibited re-weighing of the facts, the Court of Appeals here simply determined that front pay damages were not available as a matter of law and that the portion of the verdict attributable to them accord ingly could not stand. Likewise, this case does not present the issue that Petitioner’s authorities identify as problematic— i.e., im properly inferring an error of law from a mere summary denial of a new trial motion. Here, the District Court in its post-trial ruling expressly held that the verdict was proper in including a front pay component. See Pet. App. 24a-26a. The Court of Appeals had every right to correct that legal error. Compare, e.g., Fairmount Glass, 287 U.S. at 482-84 (concluding that ruling denying mo tion for new trial on grounds of excessiveness would not be disturbed, since, inter alia, “the record before us does not contain any explanation by the trial court of the refusal to grant a new trial, or any interpretation by it of the jury’s verdict”). Finally, Petitioner’s attempt to find a Seventh Amend ment issue in the Court of Appeals’ reduction of the jury award (Pet. 16-22) fails for the same reason as her at tack on that Court’s authority to disturb the District Court’s post-trial ruling: the Court of Appeals neither determined that the jury verdict was “excessive” as a matter of fact, nor did it order a “remittitur” on that basis. Instead, having concluded that the front pay com ponent of the award was improper as a matter of law, the Court of Appeals disallowed it. Even the Courts of Appeals that Petitioner cites as finding Seventh Amend ment concerns in an appellate court’s remittitur of a ver dict for excessiveness do not dispute that vacating dam ages that were improperly awarded as a matter of law is within the province of a Court of Appeals. E.g., Phelan 11 V. Local 305, 973 F.2d 1050, 1063 (2d Cir. 1992) (“Accordingly, the back pay award against Patrick Quinn should be set off in full [against earlier award of back pay to plaintiff] to prevent a double recovery” ), cert, denied, 113 S. Ct. 1415 (1993). Since Petitioner failed to show the Court of Appeals that there was any dispute or question of fact concerning the portion of the verdict attributable to front pay, she can hardly complain that there has been any infringement of her right to have the amount of damages set by a jury. After all, the jury did set the amount of damages; the Court of Appeals merely eliminated the front pay component after ruling that it was legal error for the trial court to have author ized front pay. In sum, this case does not present the Seventh Amend ment questions that the Petition raises. Should the Court wish to address those issues, it will need the benefit of a record clearly presenting them. This is particularly so since, even by Petitioner’s own admission, the Courts of Appeals at present see no constitutional impediment to reviewing, and setting aside, jury verdicts as excessive. See Pet. 12. The two cases on which Petitioner relies are both somewhat dated— Neese was decided in 1955; Grunenthal was decided in 1968— and this Court has not seen the need to revisit the issue since. Grunenthal, in deed, notes that, even at that date, “[a]ll 11 counts of appeals have held that nothing in the Seventh Amend ment precludes appellate review of the trial judge’s denial of a motion to set aside an award as excessive.” If such a widespread practice is to be reevaluated, it should be done on a clear record with the issues examined below. This case has no such record, and certiorari should be denied.7 7 It should be noted that the early decisions of this Court on which petitioner so heavily relies by no means necessarily demon strate that a Seventh Amendment issue exists. These cases uni formly rely on the then-existing “w rit of error” jurisdiction in 12 II. THE STANDARD A PPLIED B Y TH E COURT OF A P P E A LS IN OVERTURNING TH E OUTRAGE AWARD DOES NOT P R E SE N T AN ISSU E FOR TH IS COURT Petitioner alternatively suggests that this Court should grant certiorari to decide whether an appellate court en gaging in review of the sufficiency of the evidence is bound by a legally erroneous jury instruction to which the defendant made no objection. Once again, Petitioner selects an issue not presented by this case. Petitioner notes that the jury was instructed here that it could award damages for outrage if Respondent “by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or reck lessly caused severe emotional distress to her.” Pet. 22. She then complains that the Court of Appeals, in reversing the jury’s decision, cited a requirement that, to show ex treme and outrageous conduct, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant’s conduct has gone “beyond ‘all pos sible bounds of decency.’ ” Pet. 23. While Petitioner does not claim that the Court of Appeals applied the wrong state law standard, she does contend that that Court’s formulation of the standard somehow deviated from the formulation used in the jury instruction. As an initial matter, Petitioner plainly has not pre served this issue. Not only did she fail to object to the “bounds of decency” standard when Respondent referred to it in moving for j.n.o.v., and on appeal (see KFC’s Reply Memorandum in Further Support of Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict or, In the Alterna tive, for a New Trial at 14; KFC’s Brief 26 )—Petitioner herself cited it approvingly before both the District Court and the Court of Appeals. See Plaintiff Betty Roush’s holding that excessiveness is unreviewable. Only one or two even mention the Seventh Amendment, and those do not definitively decide that a Seventh Amendment problem exists. Moreover, the Fair- mount opinion reflects an erosion of the rule of nonreviewability even under w rit of error analysis. 13 Response to Defendant’s Motion for Judgment Notwith standing the Verdict and New Trial at 23-24; Petitioner’s Brief 24. Moreover, as Petitioner’s own earlier adoption of the “bounds of decency” language demonstrates, there is no clear distinction between the two formulations. The mere fact that that language was not set forth in the jury in structions in no way establishes a discrepancy. Cf. New York, Lake Erie & Western R.R. Co. v. Winter, 143 U.S. 60 (1879) (“In fact, it is much the better practice to refuse to give instructions to the jury, the substance of which has already been stated in the general charge, than to repeat the same charge in different language, al though the charge requested may be technically correct as an abstract proposition of law; for a multitude of in structions, all stated in different language and meaning the same thing, tends rather to confuse than to enlighten the minds of the jury.”). The Court of Appeals’ discus sion indicates that that Court, at least, viewed the two formulations of the legal standard as interchangeable, negating the possibility of any error in the ruling revers ing the verdict on outrage. See Pet. App. 14a-16a. In deed, the Court of Appeals’ actual conclusion that insuffi cient evidence existed uses the precise language contained in the jury instruction. See Pet. App. 15a ( “Even when considered in their totality, these actions do not amount to ‘extreme and outrageous conduct’ justifying imposition of liability for the tort of outrage in this case.” ). The issue that Petitioner seeks to raise is not presented on this record, and certiorari should be denied. 14 CONCLUSION For the reasons set forth above, the petition should be denied. Respectfully submitted, Stanley W einer J ones, Day, Reavis & P ogue 2300 Trammell Crow Center 2001 Ross Avenue Dallas, Texas 75201 (214) 220-3939 Steven T. Catlett (Counsel of Record) Sarah L. Wanner J ones, Day, Reavis & P ogue 1900 Huntington Center 41 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 (614) 469-3939 Counsel for Respondent RFC National Dated: July 13,1994 Management Company