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Palmer v. GTE California Incorporated1/30/2002
rdict as a matter of law. (Ibid.; Bowers v. Bernards (1984) 150 Cal.App.3d 870, 873-874.)
The fact that the trial court in its void order granted the motion for new trial on the grounds of excessive damages and insufficiency of the evidence and granted in part the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict does not affect our standard review on appeal from the judgment. We must independently determine whether substantial evidence supports the verdict and cannot defer to the trial court's ruling in its void order. (Sanchez-Corea v. Bank of America, supra, 38 Cal.3d at pp. 903, 907 [held that the trial court's order after the 60-day period allowed by section 660 specifying insufficiency of the evidence as an additional ground for granting a new trial was in excess of jurisdiction, and viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict independently determined that substantial evidence supported the verdict].) Although a trial court's ruling on a new trial motion is entitled to great deference when there is substantial evidence to support the ruling (Lane v. Hughes Aircraft Co. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 405, 412), we cannot defer to the trial court on the question of whether there is substantial evidence in the record. Moreover, a void order has no effect and is entitled to no deference. (See Sanchez-Corea, at p. 907.) The jurisdictional deadline to rule on a new trial motion under section 660 (Sanchez-Corea, at p. 903; Siegal v. Superior Court (1968) 68 Cal.2d 97, 101) would have little significance if the reviewing court accorded the same deference to the ruling regardless of whether the ruling was timely.
The cases cited by GTE do not convince us otherwise. The California Supreme Court in Mercer v. Perez (1968) 68 Cal.2d 104, 119, reversed an order granting the plaintiff's new trial motion on the ground of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict because the trial court failed to file a timely specification of reasons. Since section 657 states that an order granting a new trial based on insufficiency of the evidence is conclusively presumed to be made only for the reasons stated in the specification of reasons, the Mercer court held that the scope of review on appeal is limited to the reasons specified and where there is no specification of reasons the reviewing court cannot affirm the order based on insufficiency of the evidence. (Mercer, at p. 119.) The trial court did not exceed its jurisdiction in granting the motion, as occurs where the notice of intention to move for a new trial or the ruling is untimely, but the failure to file a timely specification of reasons prevented the reviewing court from affirming the order based on insufficiency of the evidence. (Mercer, at pp. 118-119.)
The Mercer court then addressed the plaintiff's appeal from the judgment and reversed the judgment based on instructional error. (Mercer v. Perez, supra, 68 Cal.2d at pp. 124-127.) The court stated that the weight of the evidence indicated that it was reasonably probable that the plaintiffs would have obtained a more favorable result absent the error, and stated that because the trial court "was far better situated to appraise the facts than we can ever be" the reviewing court gave "considerable weight" to the trial court's statement in the new trial order that "`there has been a definite miscarriage of justice.'" (Mercer, at pp. 126-127.)
Mercer v. Perez, supra, 68 Cal.2d 104 is distinguishable and does not support GTE's argument that we should give considerable weight to the trial court's ruling in this case. The Mercer court did not consider the trial court's ruling for the purpose of determining whether there was substantial evidence to support the verdict and did
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