## Facts

- A tractor-trailer driver, Weldon R. Evans, employed by FORC Company, entered a highway rest area and parked in a row of truck spaces.
- Evans left the vehicle briefly and, upon returning, checked behind the trailer and then made a short logbook entry before moving the rig.
- Evans backed the tractor-trailer at a very slow speed; due to the trailer’s size and angle, he could not see directly behind it using mirrors.
- Anthony Martin was near the rear of the tractor-trailer and an Isuzu box truck; he was injured when the tractor-trailer backed and he became trapped between the vehicles, and he fell after the box truck was moved to free him.
- Witness testimony sharply conflicted on key facts, including whether Evans activated warnings and took adequate precautions, where Martin was located, and the conduct of Martin and the box-truck occupant.
- Martin sued Evans, FORC Company, and entities associated with the leased tractor-trailer for negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by granting a new trial on the ground that the jury’s defense verdict was against the weight of the evidence where liability turned on conflicting testimony and credibility determinations.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the order granting a new trial and reinstated the jury’s verdict for the defendants.
- The court held the trial court abused its discretion by substituting its own credibility judgments for the jury’s on the central negligence question.
- Because the record contained conflicting evidence supporting the defense verdict, the trial court lacked a proper basis to set it aside as contrary to the weight of the evidence.

## Legal Principles

- A weight-of-the-evidence new trial is permitted only in rare circumstances, such as when a verdict is so contrary to the evidence that it shocks the sense of justice or appears to result from passion, prejudice, partiality, or corruption.
- A trial judge may not grant a new trial merely because the judge would have weighed conflicting testimony differently.
- When the verdict depends on witness credibility and competing accounts of events, credibility determinations are for the jury, and a court abuses its discretion by overruling that function absent the limited, recognized grounds for doing so.
- Appellate review of a weight-based new trial order is for abuse of discretion; discretion is abused when the court’s rationale rests on reweighing credibility in a record that reasonably supports the verdict.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated the defense verdict, holding that where negligence turns on sharply conflicting testimony, the jury’s credibility determinations control and a trial court abuses its discretion by granting a new trial based on its own disagreement with the jury’s weighing of the evidence.


Martin v. Evans, 551 Pa. 496, 711 A.2d 458 (Pa. 1998)