Case ID: f-appx_713/html/0673-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jeffrey LUDLOW and Kathelyn Ludlow, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LOWE’S HOME CENTERS, LLC, Defendant-Appellee.
    Nos. 14-16869, 14-17236
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted February 15, 2018 Honolulu, Hawaii
    Filed February 26, 2018
    Darren Russell, Wailea Law Company, Kihei, HI, Creighton Sebra, Trial Attorney, Morris Polieh & Purdy LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Jens Koepke, Shaw Koepke <& Satter, Torrance, CA, for Plaintiffs-Appellants
    Edmund K. Saffery, Esquire, Scott Kea-la Daezoo Shishido, Attorney, Lynda Lei Arakawa, Esquire, Attorney, Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel LLP, Honolulu, HI, for Defendant-Appellee
    Before: O’SCANNLAIN, CLIFTON, and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
   MEMORANDUM

Jeffrey and Kathelyn Ludlow appeal the district court’s rulings denying them damages for loss of use and diminution in value to their home resulting from Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC’s installation of a refrigerator. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

We affirm the district court’s decision to deny the Ludlows’ claim for damages resulting from loss of use and diminution in value because the Ludlows failed to present competent evidence to support such damages. First, the district court did not abuse its discretion in striking the testimony of the Ludlows’ expert witness, John Ferguson, because the court’s determination that he was not qualified as an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 was supported by the record. See Ollier v. Sweetwater Union High Sch. Dist., 768 F.3d 843, 860 (9th Cir. 2014). Likewise, the court did not abuse its discretion in striking specified paragraphs from the declaration of the Ludlows’ contractor, Matthew Boone. The paragraphs constituted expert testimony, and the court had previously excluded Boone from testifying as an expert because the Ludlows failed to timely disclose him. Without the excluded testimony of Ferguson and Boone, the Ludlows could not show their damages with “reasonable certainty.” Exotics Hawaii-Kona, Inc. v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., 116 Haw. 277, 292, 172 P.3d 1021 (2007); Uyemura v. Wick, 57 Haw. 102, 111, 551 P.2d 171 (1976) (quoting Ferreira v. Hono lulu Star-Bulletin, Ltd., 44 Haw. 567, 576, 356 P.2d 651 (1960)).

AFFIRMED 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.