The jury proved to be unnecessary in the Tooele trial that last week resulted in the largest jury verdict in state history.
Third District Judge Frank Noel on Thursday overturned the jury's $404 million verdict in favor of a Utah mining company and replaced it with his own verdict in favor of a Texas oil company.Jurors are angered by the judge's unusual move.
"If the judge thought the other side was right all along, why did he waste seven weeks of my time?" said juror Michelle Smith. "Why did he have a trial at all?"
"I think the judge made a really bad decision," said juror Brian Gilley. "He wasted my time and cost me a fair amount of money. I spent seven weeks in that trial. I gave up my summer and my vacation. After we worked hard to make what we felt was a very fair decision, he turned around and changed it."Attorneys for the Utah company - Gold Standard Co. - are outraged. "We thought that Judge Noel, like most American judges, would have some faith in the jury system and not deem himself to be smarter than the jury about the facts," said Jim Lowrie, lead attorney for the Salt Lake company.
Gold Standard will appeal Noel's decision.
The dispute between the two companies stems from a 1973 operating agreement that gave Getty Oil 75 percent working interest in several mines near Tooele owned by Gold Standard. Gold Standard retained 25 percent interest.
Gold Standard claimed Getty Oil subsequently cheated the Salt Lake company out of its share of profits from the mines. The jury agreed. Noel did not.
Noel's decision reflects his continuing hostility toward Gold Standard, Lowrie said. Noel made three other rulings against Gold Standard in the seven-year course of the case, Lowrie said. The Utah Supreme Court has reversed each ruling.
When Getty Oil attorneys rested their case last week, they asked Noel not to send the matter to the jury but rather to rule from the bench that they had won.
Noel waited, letting the jury decide the case. When the jury returned with a verdict for Gold Standard, Noel then ruled on Getty's request for a directed verdict in its favor.
Noel ruled that Gold Standard failed to prove that Getty Oil had defrauded it. He outlined his reasons for that decision in a 12-page memo.
Getty Oil attorneys were pleased with the ruling. They had planned to appeal the jury's verdict.