Edwin Durand v. Stonehouse Court Associates, L

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiffs Edwin and Madelaine Durand appeal the district court’s denial of their motion for a new trial as to damages in their lawsuit against Defendants for the conversion of their Wabco loader. Plaintiffs also appeal the district court’s denial of their motion for reconsideration regarding the new trial ruling. Because the district court did not make a mistake of law and the verdict is not contrary to the clear weight of the evidence, we affirm.

The district court did not err by declining to adopt Plaintiffs’ proposed jury instructions adding a definition of fair market value. The definition proposed by Plaintiffs had been used to calculate value in eminent domain cases and was not clearly applicable to conversion cases. Compare Cal. Civ.Code § 3336 with Cal. Code Civ. P. § 1263.320(a); see Lint v. Chisholm, 121 Cal.App.3d 615, 624 , 177 Cal.Rptr. 314 (1981). The court’s instruction did not misstate California law with respect to calculating damages for conver sion, and the court did not abuse its discretion by wording the instructions differently from Cal. Civ.Code § 3336.

We affirm the jury’s award of $6,000 because it is not contrary to the clear weight of the…