Watkins

MEMORANDUM **

Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 49(a), if, in preparing the special verdict form, the trial “court omits any issue of fact raised by the pleadings or by the evidence, each party waives the right to a trial by jury of the issue so omitted unless before the jury retires the party demands its submission to the jury.” On the special verdict form sent to the jury in this case, if the jury did not find the defendants’ actions to be a legal cause of injury to Watkins (as it did not), it was not allowed to reach the issues of damages or the issue of malice or reckless disregard. Because Watkins did not object to the special verdict form before the jury retired to consider its verdict, Watkins waived his right to a jury finding on recklessness or maliciousness (a precursor to punitive damages) if the jury found a violation of federal or state law but no *602 legal cause of damages.

Watkins’s argument that he pressed his request for punitive damages at the post-verdict sidebar does not on its face satisfy Rule 49, because the jury had already retired, deliberated, and returned its verdict. Even if we assume, for purposes of discussion, that the waiver could be withdrawn under Rule 49…