John Marshall Harlan II

“ The purpose of such an effort has been to preserve, if possible, the integrity of the jury's general verdict. As one leading commentator has explained, in the context of Federal Rule 49 (b) ,
'The power to enter judgment on findings consistent with each other but inconsistent with the general verdict is a constitutional one and does not violate the Seventh Amendment since the jury's findings of fact are not being re-examined but, as a reasonable regulation of practice, their more specific findings of fact are allowed to control over their general conclusion embodied in the general verdict. ”

“ The inconsistencies which the courts have dealt with in these cases were inconsistencies between a general verdict for one of the parties and seemingly conflicting special findings in answer to added interrogatories. ”

“ In contrast to the negligence in the abstract which the jury can be said to have found in answer to Interrogatory No. 16, the judge instructed with reference to Interrogatory No. 20 that 'In answering this question you are instructed that it is a matter of law (that) the defendant B & O is only to be held to a reasonable degree of care, and not to the performance of practicable impossibilities, but that where the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that the employer's negligence played any part, even the slightest, introducing (sic in producing?) ”