Court considers whether trial judge wrongly overturned jury in pedestrian-crash case

The Utah Court of Appeals heard arguments in a negligence appeal challenging a district court's decision to set aside a jury verdict that found defendant Rusty Cope not negligent in a crash that struck a child.

Appellant counsel Danny Sepernich said the jury had heard three days of evidence, including expert testimony, videos and an animation, and concluded Cope was not negligent. Sepernich urged the appellate panel to respect the jury verdict and argued the district court's post-trial order improperly substituted judicial judgment for the jury's credibility determinations.

Why it matters: The case turns on whether the district court engaged in legal error when it overturned the jury's verdict after trial and whether documentary evidence (video) or expert demonstrations can, as a matter of law, override reasonable inferences a jury could draw. Judges focused on the trial's bifurcated posture (phase 1: was there any negligence at all; phase 2: apportionment of fault) and on whether demonstrative animation and expert testimony were so flawed that no reasonable jury could have returned the not-negligent verdict.

Blake Johnson, arguing for the appellees, defended the district court's decision. He said that under the undisputed facts the boy struck was visible during a critical 5.5-second window before the collision and that the district court reasonably concluded the driver had opportunity to avoid the crash. Johnson argued those factual findings permitted the trial judge to reverse the jury as a matter of law.

The panel questioned whether portions of the evidence (the animation and expert line-of-sight testimony) were reliable, how to treat video evidence on appeal, and whether competing inferences made this principally a jury question. The court recessed and said it would take the matter under advisement.