## Facts

- A two-year-old child, Michael Roberts, died following surgery at a hospital after an alleged small-bowel perforation and failure to recognize and treat resulting complications.
- The father pursued a wrongful-death claim against the hospital and the treating physician; liability was not the primary dispute at trial.
- Damages evidence emphasized the child’s health, the family’s relationship with him, and the parents’ grief and loss of companionship.
- Plaintiffs introduced a videotape presentation containing family photos and video, audio of the child’s voice, and audio of the mother speaking and singing; defendants objected as unfairly prejudicial.
- In closing, plaintiffs’ counsel urged jurors to assign substantial monetary value to the child’s life, using large figures in argument.
- The jury returned a $10 million verdict for the father.
- The trial court declined to disturb the verdict; defendants appealed, challenging evidentiary rulings, jury instructions, and the size of the award.

## Issues

1. Whether admitting the plaintiffs’ videotape presentation was an abuse of discretion because its emotional impact substantially outweighed its probative value.
2. Whether the damages-related jury instructions, considered as a whole, were misleading or legally erroneous, or whether refusal of additional instructions was reversible error.
3. Whether the $10 million wrongful-death award was so excessive that it reflected passion, prejudice, or other improper influence, requiring remittitur or a new trial on damages.
4. Whether, for limited public-policy purposes, an appellate court may consider information about pretrial settlement negotiations and insurance limits when evaluating remittitur in an extreme verdict.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the admission of the videotape, holding the trial judge acted within broad discretion and the evidence was relevant to non-economic wrongful-death damages.
- The court upheld the jury instructions, concluding that read as a whole they were not misleading and that refusal of duplicative instructions was not error.
- The court held the $10 million award was excessive under governing standards.
- The court affirmed liability but conditioned affirmance of the judgment on acceptance of a substantial remittitur; if the plaintiff rejected remittitur, a new trial limited to damages was required.
- The court indicated that, although settlement negotiations are generally irrelevant at trial, an appellate court may consider or require briefing on such information for limited public-policy reasons related to remittitur’s settlement effects.

## Legal Principles

- Trial courts have wide discretion to admit videotapes and similar demonstrative evidence, subject to relevance and unfair-prejudice limits.
- Jury instructions are reviewed as a whole; a potentially ambiguous nonbinding instruction does not warrant reversal if the overall charge could not have misled the jury.
- Refusal of a requested instruction is not error if the legal principle is adequately covered by other instructions given.
- A verdict should not be set aside as excessive unless it is “monstrous,” “enormous,” “beyond all measure,” “unreasonable,” and indicates passion, partiality, prejudice, or corruption.
- Remittitur is permissible even when the excess portion of a verdict cannot be calculated with precision from objective data.

## Conclusion

The court upheld key trial rulings supporting the damages presentation, including admission of an emotionally powerful videotape, but ruled that the $10 million wrongful-death award exceeded permissible bounds and required a substantial remittitur or, failing acceptance, a new trial on damages.


Roberts v. Stevens Clinic Hosp., Inc., 345 S.E.2d 791 (W. Va. 1986)