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Niedojadlo v. Central Maine Moving
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MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT
Decision:	1998 ME 199 	
Docket:	Pen-97-694
Argued:	June 8, 1998
Decided:	August 3, 1998

Panel: 		WATHEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, AND SAUFLEY, JJ.
Majority:	ROBERTS, CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, and SAUFLEY, JJ.
Dissenting:	WATHEN, C.J., and DANA, J.

JOHN NIEDOJADLO

v.

CENTRAL MAINE MOVING & STORAGE CO., et al.

RUDMAN, J.

	[¶1]  Central Maine Moving and Storage Co. and Raymond J. Lynch, Jr.
(collectively "the Company") appeal from the judgment entered in the
Superior Court (Penobscot County, Marsano, J.) following a jury verdict in
John Niedojadlo's favor on his claims for breach of contract and fraud.  The
Company contends, inter alia, that the court erred by refusing to sever
Niedojadlo's punitive damages claim from his fraud liability claim, and that
the trial court erred in its jury instruction on Niedojadlo's contract claim. 
We agree that the trial court erred in its instruction to the jury and
therefore vacate the judgment.
	[¶2]  Niedojadlo was employed by Central Maine Moving & Storage
Company from 1984 to 1994, transporting household goods for customers of
the Company. Niedojadlo's compensation was based on a percentage of the
price charged by the Company for each haul.  Niedojadlo was paid from a
running account maintained by the Company.  The Company credited
Niedojadlo's account for the amounts he earned for each haul, and debited
his account when Niedojadlo requested his compensation.  During the first
year of Niedojadlo's employment he received a monthly accounting of the
amounts owed him by the Company, but after the first year he stopped
receiving such monthly statements.  Although Niedojadlo repeatedly
requested copies of the ledger sheets on which his account was recorded,
his employer, Raymond Lynch, Jr.{1}, informed Niedojadlo each time that the
ledgers were unavailable or incomplete.  
	[¶3]  In May, 1993, Lynch instructed an employee of the Company to
create a new 1993 ledger for Niedojadlo that did not carry over
approximately $10,000 due to Niedojadlo for work he performed in 1992. 
This employee followed Lynch's instruction, essentially creating two sets of
ledgers for Niedojadlo's account.
	[¶4]  Niedojadlo finally gained access to his ledger sheets during off-
hours and discovered that his 1992 balance had not been carried forward. 
He photocopied the ledgers and confronted Lynch who denied any
wrongdoing or any amount owed to Niedojadlo.  Niedojadlo brought an
action against the Company and Lynch for breach of contract and fraud.  The
jury found for Niedojadlo on both counts and awarded $12,000 in
compensatory damages and $30,000 in punitive damages.  The trial court
denied the Company's subsequent motions for judgment as a matter of law
and/or new trial.  This appeal ensued.
  

I.

	[¶5]  The Company requested that the trial court submit Niedojadlo's
punitive damages claim to the jury only if it first rendered an affirmative
answer to the question of the Company's fraud.  The decision to sever the
submission of claims to a jury rests within the discretion of the trial court. 
"When the determination of any question rests in the judicial discretion of
the trial court, the exercise of that discretion cannot be reviewed by an
appellate court unless it is made to appear that the decision was clearly
wrong or that it was based upon some error in law."  Rioux v. Portland Water
Dist., 132 Me. 307, 309, 170 A. 63, 64 (1934).   
	[¶6]  The Company speculates that the jury did not base its verdict on
Niedojadlo's fraud claim on the evidence, but rather only reached that
verdict in order to assess punitive damages.  We presume that the jury
follows the trial court's instructions.   See Michaud v. Steckino, 390 A.2d
524, 536 (Me. 1978) ("[i]t must be presumed that the jurors were
influenced in their verdict only by the law as given to them by the trial
justice and the legal evidence presented to them during the course of the
trial") (emphasis in original).  Because the jury was explicitly instructed in
this case that it could reach the issue of punitive damages only if it found
that the Company had committed fraud, we find no error or abuse of
discretion in the court's decision to submit the fraud liability and punitive
damages questions contemporaneously.  

II.

	[¶7]  The Company argues that the trial court erroneously instructed
the jury that the Company's contract with Niedojadlo imposed an implicit
obligation on the Company to act with objective good faith, or more
specifically, to act in a commercially reasonable manner.{2}  The Company
contends that the good faith standard of commercially reasonable behavior
by parties to a contract is only applicable to specific types of contracts
between merchants as contemplated by the Uniform Commercial Code.  We
agree.
	[¶8]  We review jury instructions in their entirety and will disturb a
judgment on the grounds that the jury instructions are in error only if the
instructions fail to inform the jury correctly and fairly in all necessary
respects of the governing law.  See Phillips v. Eastern Me. Med. Ctr., 565
A.2d 306, 308 (Me. 1989) (quotations omitted).  When a party has made a
timely objection pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 51(b) to the court's jury
instructions, an error in the instructions is reversible error only if it results
in prejudice.  See Russell v. Accurate Abatement, Inc., 1997 ME 98, ¶ 4,
694 A.2d 921, 923.  A timely objection to the court's contract instruction
was made and preserved by the Company.		 	
	[¶9]  Contracts governed by the Maine version of the Uniform
Commercial Code are subject to an implied covenant of good faith.  See 11
M.R.S.A. § 1-203 (1995) ("Every contract or duty within this Title imposes
an obligation of good faith in its performance or enforcement.").  "Good
faith" is defined by statute as "honesty in fact in the conduct or transaction
concerned."  11 M.R.S.A. § 2-103 (1995).  The U.C.C. also imposes the more
onerous duty of objective good faith in certain commercial situations.  See id.
at §§ 2-103, 3-406, 3-419(3) and 9-318(2).   "Objective good faith" is
defined by statute as conduct that incorporates the "observance of
reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing."  Id. at 2-103.  
	[¶10]  The employment agreement between the Company and
Niedojadlo does not fall within the class of contracts governed by the
U.C.C.'s good faith requirement of commercial reasonableness.  We have had
the opportunity to extend the implied covenant of objective good faith in
contracts not governed by Maine's U.C.C. and we have specifically refused to
do so.  See First NH Banks Granite State v. Scarborough, 615 A.2d 248, 250
(Me. 1992);  Diversified Foods, Inc. v. First Nat'l Bank of Boston, 605 A.2d
609, 612 (Me. 1992).{3}  We decline the invitation to do so today.  Because the
jury was instructed to assess the Company's conduct against a commercial
reasonableness standard to which the Company was not subject, we
conclude that the Company was prejudiced by the court's jury instruction
relating to Niedojadlo's contract claim.  
	[¶11]  The resulting issue is whether the judgment entered in this
case may be supported by the jury's verdict on the fraud count alone.  The
jury verdict form instructed the jury to answer separately the questions of
whether the Company breached its contract with Niedojadlo and whether
the Company committed fraud on Niedojadlo.  An affirmative answer to
either question, however, directed the jury to answer the verdict form's
question number four, which asked, "What are Plaintiff's compensatory
damages?"  Question number four did not require the jury to specify
separately the compensatory damages it found on the breach of contract
count and the compensatory damages it found on the fraud count.  We can
thus only speculate as to the jury's calculus in arriving at $12,000 in
aggregate compensatory damages.  Because we cannot distinguish that
portion of the jury award attributable to the fraud verdict, we must remand
for a new trial on both the contract and fraud counts.  We need not reach the
Company's other contentions on appeal.
	The entry is:
Judgment vacated. Remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
DANA, J., with whom WATHEN, C.J., joins, dissenting.
	[¶12]  I respectfully dissent.  Although we have never held that a
contract for employment is subject to the good faith requirement of
commercially reasonable conduct, the court's instruction on this point was
harmless in two respects.
	[¶13]  First, it is inconceivable that the jury could have found CMMS
and Lynch liable for fraud and a breach of a duty of good faith, but not liable
for a simple breach of the underlying oral employment contract.  The
gravamen of Niedojadlo's complaint was that Lynch and, in effect, CMMS
intentionally altered Niedojadlo's account records in order to prevent
Niedojadlo from being fully compensated for work that he had completed for
the company.  This act of deception, which necessarily formed the basis of
the jury's finding on the fraud count, also compels the jury's implied finding
that CMMS breached what must be an essential element of the parties'
contract, namely, that CMMS would pay Niedojadlo for the work he
performed.
	[¶14]  Furthermore, the jury's finding that Lynch and CMMS
perpetrated a fraud on Niedojadlo is fully supported by the evidence and
provides an independent rational basis for the damage award.  "A damage
award will be disturbed only when it is plain that there is no rational basis
upon which the amount of the award may be supported.  A rational basis
exists if there is any competent evidence in the record to support it." 
James v. MacDonald, 1998 ME 148, ¶ 11, __ A.2d __ (quotation omitted). 
Based on the record, the jury rationally could have found that Niedojadlo
reasonably relied on CMMS to accurately record the compensation to which
he was entitled, and that the company's intentional alteration of the books
caused Niedojadlo to suffer damages in the amount of the alteration.
	[¶15]  I would affirm the judgment entered in the Superior Court.
Attorney for plaintiff:
Charles W. Cox, Esq., (orally)
Jude, Cox & Tardy
P O Box 327
Newport, ME 04953-0327

Attorney for defendants:

Edward W. Gould, Esq., (orally)
James S. Nixon, Esq.
Gross, Minsky, Mogul & Singal, P.A.
P O Box 917
Bangor, ME 04402-0917