Nissan North America, Inc., et al. v. Henderson-Brundidge, [Ms. SC-2024-0121, Oct. 31, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2025). The Court (Cook, J.; Stewart, C.J., and Wise, Bryan, and Lewis, JJ., concur; Cook and McCool, JJ., concur specially, with opinions; Shaw, J., concurs in the result, with opinion; Sellers and Mendheim, JJ., concur in the result) reverses the Mobile Circuit Court’s denial of a motion for new trial filed by Nissan North America, Inc., and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. based on the failure of two jurors to disclose that they had been named as a defendant in multiple civil suits. The Court “conclude(s) that the trial court declined to exercise its discretion based on an erroneous belief that our decisions in Jimmy Day Plumbing [& Heating, Inc. v. Smith, 964 So. 2d 1 (Ala. 2007)] and Hood [v. McElroy, 127 So. 3d 325 (Ala. 2011)] deprived it of any discretionary power” to grant a new trial and remands to allow the trial court to exercise its discretion. Ms. *3.
“The granting or denying a motion for a new trial based on a juror’s silence during voir dire rests within the sound discretion of the trial court… When a decision is within the trial court’s discretionary powers, the trial court ‘has the power to choose between two or more courses of action and is therefore not bound in all cases to select one over another.’ Swindle v. Swindle, 157 So. 3d 983, 992 (Ala. Civ. App. 2014).” Ms. *23.
The Freeman factors which guide a trial court’s determination of whether probable prejudice exists as a result of a juror’s failure to respond to voir dire questions are “‘temporal remoteness of the matter inquired about, the ambiguity of the question propounded, the prospective juror’s inadvertence or willfulness in falsifying or failing to answer, the failure of the juror to recollect, and the materiality of the matter inquired about.’” Ms. *24, quoting Freeman v. Hall, 286 Ala. 161, 167, 230 So. 2d 330, 336 (1970) (emphasis added by Nissan v. Brundidge).
“Unless a single outcome is mandated by the controlling law, a trial court may not abdicate its duty to exercise discretion by purporting that its hands are tied by a rule of law.” Ms. *26. The Court holds that “the trial court misread our decision in Jimmy Day Plumbing as standing for the proposition that a juror’s prior litigation history is always immaterial whenever that history involves a case that is factually distinguishable from the case being tried.” Ms. *29.
The Court also holds that “[t]he trial court ... misinterpreted the effect of our decision in Hood. Appellate review under the abuse-of-discretion standard is inherently fact-specific and context-dependent, especially when the trial court’s exercise of discretion involves the application and weighing of many factors.” Ms. *34. “The Court in Hood also relied heavily upon the ambiguity of the voir dire question propounded to the jury in that case. Here, in contrast, the trial court expressly concluded that‘[t]he question was not ambiguous and [that] the [it could not and would] not assume any juror was confused by such a simple question, asked three times without contradiction.’” Ms. *35.
Noting that the trial court is in the best position to determine whether a failure to respond to voir dire questions resulted in probable prejudice, the Court “remand[s] the case for the trial court to exercise its discretion in considering Nissan’s motion for a new trial.” Ms. *37.
As to Nissan’s renewed JML motion, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff Alise Henderson-Brundidge, the Court “conclude[s] that [Alise’s expert] Broadhead’s testimony sufficiently established the existence of at least one safer, practical, alternative design that would have mitigated or prevented Alise’s injuries and that Alise met her burden of presenting substantial evidence in support of her AEMLD claim.” Ms. *42.