Sexual assault default judgment is vacated on appeal

This is an unusual case involving sexual assault, a default judgment, and a jury verdict that rejected the assault allegations. 

The case is Henry v. Oluwole, issued on July 15. Plaintiff worked for a hospital in Connecticut. She claims defendant Oluwole sexually assaulted her at work. She sued Oluwole and the hospital, asserting assault, battery, and other state law claims like false imprisonment, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. Oluwole defaulted: he did not file an answer because he was in a serious motorcycle accident, and years passed before he entered the case. Since Oluwole defaulted, the district court entered a default judgment against him, and following a damages hearing, the district court awarded plaintiff $100,000 in damages. Then case went to trial against the Hospital, but the jury determined that Oluwole had not engaged in any tortious conduct against her through assault or battery. The hospital therefore won the trial because plaintiff's case against the hospital was premised on the assault and battery claim.

Do you see the problem? We have a default judgment against one defendant for actions that a jury found, in a case against a related defendant, did not happen. The district court, following the trial against the hospital, vacated the default judgment against Oluwole on the assault and battery. But it did not vacate the default judgment against this defendant on the other state law claims: IIED, NIED, false imprisonment, and negligence. The Second Circuit vacates the full default judgment on all claims, including those other state law claims.

The leading case on this issue is Frow v. De La Vega, 82 U.S. 552 (1872), which said that a default judgment that creates an "inconguity" with a judgment on the merits is "unseemly and absurd, as well as unauthorized by law." Frow is an old case, but it's still good law. The Second Circuit (Menashi and Raggi, with Judge Kearse in dissent) finds that the state law claims that survived the verdict against the hospital are not consistent with the claims that plaintiff lost in her trial against the hospital, because they all grew out of the same allegations relating the sexual assault.