Piesco v. Koch
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
12 F.3d 332 (2d Cir. 1993)
After publicly criticizing a police exam's lowered passing standard before a state senate committee, city personnel official Piesco (plaintiff) received a reprimand and marginal performance ratings from her supervisors, who claimed the ratings were unrelated to her testimony; a jury found she was fired in retaliation for her protected speech and awarded $1.8 million, and the district judge, though believing the verdict was clearly wrong, denied a new trial believing a Second Circuit panel's statement in Dunlap-McCuller required the verdict to be "egregious" before a new trial could be granted.
Whether a district court may grant a new trial on the ground that the jury verdict is against the great weight of the evidence, so long as the verdict is seriously erroneous.