## Facts

- Plaintiffs sued defendant for personal injuries from an automobile collision; a jury returned a defense verdict and judgment was entered for defendant.
- Plaintiffs moved for a new trial based on alleged juror misconduct, supported by affidavits from three jurors and from plaintiffs and their counsel.
- One juror separately went to the accident scene during a trial recess, stepped off distances, examined road conditions, and drove routes to check visibility and distances.
- Another juror went to the scene after the close of evidence but before deliberations concluded, drove along a described route at varying speeds, and timed segments with a stopwatch.
- Affidavits also included statements about why the jurors went, what they sought to verify, and how they voted.
- Plaintiffs’ and counsel’s affidavits recounted postverdict hearsay about the alleged misconduct and asserted plaintiffs learned of it only after the verdict.
- The trial court denied the motion for a new trial; plaintiffs appealed on a clerk’s transcript alone.

## Issues

1. Whether juror affidavits describing jurors’ out-of-court scene visits and tests are admissible to impeach a verdict.
2. Whether, based on admissible evidence, plaintiffs established prejudicial juror misconduct requiring a new trial.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment and the order denying a new trial.
- The court held juror affidavits are competent only to prove objectively verifiable “overt acts,” not jurors’ motives, reasoning, or how events affected deliberations or votes.
- After excluding incompetent portions of the affidavits, the remaining evidence did not show prejudicial misconduct or an abuse of discretion in denying a new trial.

## Legal Principles

- Juror affidavits may not be used to show jurors’ mental processes or the effect of events on a juror’s assent to or dissent from the verdict; such matters inhere in the verdict.
- Juror affidavits may be considered to prove “overt acts” of misconduct that are objectively observable (e.g., a private visit to an accident scene), but not the juror’s purpose, conclusions, or the asserted impact on decisionmaking.
- A party seeking a new trial for juror misconduct bears the burden to show misconduct by competent evidence and to show resulting prejudice; the trial court’s ruling is reviewed for abuse of discretion.
- Hearsay affidavits reporting what jurors allegedly said after trial do not supply competent proof of juror deliberations or mental operations.

## Conclusion

Because only the jurors’ physical scene visits could be considered and the record lacked competent evidence that extra-record information was conveyed in deliberations in a prejudicial manner, the trial court acted within its discretion in denying a new trial and the defense verdict stood.


Sopp v. Smith, 377 P.2d 649 (Cal. 1963)