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Nature of Suit Code: 150
Nature of Suit: Overpayments &amp; Enforcement of Judgments
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 16, 2009 Decided May 14, 2010 

No. 08-7145 

THOMAS P. ATHRIDGE, SR. AND THOMAS P. ATHRIDGE, JR., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

AETNA CASUALTY AND SURETY CO., 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:96-cv-02708) 

 Erik S. Jaffe argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants. 

 Steven M. Klepper argued the cause for appellee. With 

him on the brief was Geoffrey H. Genth. 

 Before: ROGERS, GARLAND and GRIFFITH, Circuit 

Judges. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

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 GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Tommy Athridge and his father 

have spent more than a decade trying to collect the judgment 

entered against the driver responsible for an accident that 

severely injured Athridge. In this diversity action, the 

Athridges seek to recover from the driver’s insurer, Aetna 

Casualty and Surety Company. The Athridges appeal a jury 

verdict that absolved Aetna of liability under its policy as well 

as a grant of summary judgment in favor of Aetna on the 

Athridges’ alternative theories of liability. We affirm. 

I. 

On July 29, 1987, Jorge Iglesias, then 16, went to the 

house of his cousins, Francisco and Hilda Rivas, who were 

out of town. Entering their house through an open window, 

Iglesias found the keys to the Rivases’ car and took it for a 

drive. What began as a joyride ended in tragedy when Iglesias 

struck and seriously injured his friend Tommy Athridge, who 

was on foot and became the victim in a game of “chicken” 

gone awry. We have described the details of the accident 

elsewhere. See Athridge v. Rivas, 141 F.3d 357, 359 (D.C. 

Cir. 1998). 

 This lawsuit is one thread in the web of litigation spun 

from that unfortunate event. Its premise is simple enough. The 

Athridges won a $5.5 million judgment against Iglesias in a 

previous lawsuit. He never paid. In an attempt to collect the 

judgment, the Athridges brought this suit against Aetna, 

Iglesias’s insurer. This is the second time some part of this 

suit has come before us. In the previous appeal, we partially 

reversed a grant of summary judgment in favor of Aetna and 

explained that Aetna’s liability turned on the applicability of a 

policy exclusion that barred coverage for any person using a 

vehicle without a reasonable belief that he is entitled to do so. 

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See Athridge v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. (Aetna I), 351 F.3d 

1166, 1172 (D.C. Cir. 2003). Because Iglesias’s state of mind 

at the time of the accident presented a disputed question of 

material fact, we remanded the case for further proceedings. 

Id. at 1172, 1177. On remand, Aetna prevailed when a jury 

concluded that Iglesias lacked a reasonable belief that he was 

entitled to drive the Rivases’ car. The Athridges appeal the 

jury verdict, asserting that various procedural and evidentiary 

errors at trial require reversal. 

 This appeal encompasses more than that verdict, 

however. On remand, the Athridges renewed two alternative 

theories of liability they had raised, but the district court 

declined to address, prior to Aetna I. These theories spring 

from Aetna’s participation in the Athridges’ original lawsuit 

against Iglesias—the case in which the Athridges won the 

$5.5 million judgment. See Athridge v. Iglesias, 950 F. Supp. 

1187, 1194 (D.D.C. 1996). 

For that trial, Iglesias retained his own lawyer, Irving 

Starr, to defend him. A few days before the start of trial, Starr 

ran into Paul Pearson, a lawyer Aetna had retained in a 

previous matter related to the accident. Starr asked for 

Pearson’s help in the impending trial, and Pearson agreed. 

Starr made no offer to pay Pearson, knowing Iglesias could 

not afford another lawyer, and when Pearson agreed to help, 

Starr assumed he would do so for free. Unbeknownst to Starr, 

Pearson then went to Aetna and persuaded it to pay him to 

help Starr on the strength of his argument that securing a 

verdict for Iglesias in this matter would be in the insurer’s 

interest. Pearson entered an appearance for Iglesias on the 

second day of trial, but only after Iglesias and Starr had 

signed a handwritten document acknowledging that Pearson’s 

assistance in no way indicated that Aetna was forfeiting its 

right to disclaim coverage for the accident. Pearson 

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participated actively in Iglesias’s defense and withdrew only 

after Aetna told him, while the appeal was pending, that it 

would no longer pay him to help Iglesias. 

On remand from Aetna I, the Athridges maintained that 

Pearson’s involvement at Iglesias’s trial created liability for 

Aetna apart from whether the policy covered the accident. 

First, they argued that Aetna was estopped from denying 

coverage because it had participated in Iglesias’s legal 

defense. Second, they claimed that, under its policy, Aetna’s 

participation triggered an obligation to pay postjudgment 

interest on the award against Iglesias, even in the absence of 

any duty to pay on the underlying judgment. 

The magistrate judge turned to these alternative theories 

of liability after conducting the jury trial on Iglesias’s state of 

mind and entered summary judgment for Aetna on both. He 

rejected the estoppel claim because the Athridges presented 

no evidence that Aetna controlled or prejudiced Iglesias’s 

defense in any way. Athridge v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 510 F. 

Supp. 2d 1, 7–8 (D.D.C. 2007). He was also unpersuaded by 

the argument that Aetna was required to pay postjudgment 

interest, finding no such duty when the insurer had no liability 

for the underlying judgment. Id. at 3–5. The Athridges appeal 

both decisions. 

This court has jurisdiction to hear the Athridges’ appeal 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 636(c)(3) and 1291 (2006). In Part 

II, we review the entry of summary judgment in Aetna’s 

favor. In Part III we address the challenges to the jury verdict. 

Because this is a diversity action, we apply the substantive 

law of the District of Columbia. See Messina v. Nationwide 

Mut. Ins. Co., 998 F.2d 2, 4 (D.C. Cir. 1993). 

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II.

At the outset, Aetna maintains that the Athridges 

forfeited their theories of liability arising from Aetna’s 

participation in Iglesias’s defense by failing to raise them in 

Aetna I. The Athridges counter that they were not obliged to 

make arguments the district court had failed to address. Not to 

be outdone, the Athridges also reply that Aetna forfeited its 

forfeiture argument by failing to raise it in a timely fashion in 

the district court on remand following Aetna I. We need not 

resolve these dueling claims of forfeiture. We assume for the 

purposes of our analysis that the Athridges have preserved 

these issues and nevertheless affirm the grant of summary 

judgment in Aetna’s favor. See, e.g., Tax Analysts v. I.R.S., 

495 F.3d 676, 680 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. See, 

e.g., Woodruff v. Peters, 482 F.3d 521, 526 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

Summary judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine 

issue as to any material fact and . . . the movant is entitled to 

judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c)(2). “In 

reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we must ‘view the 

evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party 

and draw all reasonable inferences in its favor.’” Woodruff, 

482 F.3d at 526 (quoting Mastro v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 

447 F.3d 843, 850 (D.C. Cir. 2006)). 

A. 

The Athridges maintain that Aetna is estopped from 

disclaiming coverage for the accident because it paid Pearson 

to assist in Iglesias’s defense without a suitable reservation of 

its right to disclaim coverage. See Appellants’ Br. at 15. But 

under District of Columbia law, an insurer may be estopped 

from denying coverage only if its participation somehow 

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prejudiced the insured by undermining his ability to defend 

himself. See Diamond Serv. Co. v. Utica Mut. Ins. Co., 476 

A.2d 648, 658 (1984). See generally In re Himmelfarb’s 

Estate, 345 A.2d 477, 483 (D.C. 1975) (“An essential element 

of estoppel is prejudice caused by detrimental reliance.”). 

The Athridges contend that prejudice is not an element of 

estoppel, and point to Continental Casualty Co. v. Hartford 

Fire Insurance Co., 116 F.3d 932 (D.C. Cir. 1997), in 

support. Continental involved an insurer that “waived the 

right” to raise the breach of a policy provision as a defense to 

coverage. Id. at 939 n.8. The Continental court made no 

mention of prejudice, but that is of no help to the Athridges’ 

argument because waiver of a policy breach is distinct from 

estoppel by defense: 

Waiver is an act or course of conduct by the insurer 

which reasonably leads the insured to believe that [a] 

breach will not be enforced. Estoppel, on the other hand, 

generally results when an insurance company assumes 

the defense of an action [and] to prevail on this basis, the 

insured is required, in some jurisdictions, to show 

prejudice while in other jurisdictions prejudice will be 

presumed. 

Diamond, 476 A.2d at 654 (citation omitted). Thus for the 

Athridges’ estoppel claim to succeed, Pearson’s participation 

must have somehow harmed Iglesias’s defense. 

Anticipating our conclusion that estoppel requires a 

showing of prejudice, the Athridges maintain that prejudice 

should be presumed in this case. This argument stands on 

firmer ground: An insured may be entitled to a rebuttable 

presumption of prejudice, depending on the amount of control 

the insurer exercised over the defense. See Nat’l Union Fire 

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Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 384 F.2d 316, 

318 (D.C. Cir. 1967); Diamond, 476 A.2d at 657–58. 

Assuming the Athridges were entitled to this presumption, 

summary judgment was still proper because Aetna rebutted 

the presumption with uncontroverted evidence that its 

participation did not harm Iglesias. Cf. Curtis v. Cuff, 537 

A.2d 1072, 1075 (D.C. 1987) (holding that where 

“uncontroverted” evidence rebuts a presumption that a 

defendant consented to the driver’s use of his vehicle, the 

defendant is “entitled to judgment as a matter of law”). To 

begin with, Iglesias knew that Aetna would not indemnify 

him if he lost—the insurer had already won a declaratory 

judgment absolving it of liability for the accident years 

before. See Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Iglesias, C.A. No. 90-

11645 (D.C. Super. Ct. Feb. 22, 1991). Iglesias had every 

incentive to muster his best defense. This is one reason why 

he had his own “counsel readily available to [him] at all 

relevant times,” a fact that tends to undermine any claim of 

prejudice. Diamond, 476 A.2d at 658. It was Iglesias’s own 

counsel, Starr, who invited Pearson to participate, and who 

concluded that Pearson “did a magnificent job” at trial. Starr 

Dep. at 121. 

The only purported evidence of prejudice the Athridges 

offered is a single ambiguous sentence in a letter from 

Pearson to Aetna explaining that he and Starr tried the case 

“primarily on the issue of liability, not damages.” Letter from 

Pearson to Aetna (Apr. 2, 1996). The Athridges highlight this 

statement to argue that Aetna, through Pearson, prejudiced 

Iglesias’s defense by neglecting the issue of damages. The 

Athridges ask this court to infer from this single statement 

three conclusions: (1) Iglesias’s lawyers failed to adequately 

contest damages at trial, (2) this failure was the doing of 

Pearson or Aetna, and (3) this failure resulted in an inflated 

damage award. There is simply no evidence to support any of 

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these. There is no indication that Pearson impeded Starr from 

putting on the best defense possible under the circumstances. 

See Aetna I, 351 F.3d at 1174–75 (noting that Pearson’s 

participation in Iglesias’s defense was “a windfall benefit for 

[Iglesias],” especially in the absence of any indication that 

“Aetna, Svengali-like, talked [Iglesias’s] lawyers out of a 

better defense”). The Athridges likewise failed to show what 

arguments could have been made that might have resulted in a 

lower award of damages. 

In short, the Athridges ask this court to assume too much. 

At oral argument, their counsel conceded their claim of 

prejudice was largely “speculative.” Tr. of Oral Argument at 

11. “The possibility that a jury might speculate in the 

plaintiff’s favor . . . is simply insufficient to defeat summary 

judgment.” Montgomery v. Chao, 546 F.3d 703, 708 (D.C. 

Cir. 2008). The magistrate judge was correct to enter 

summary judgment in favor of Aetna on the estoppel issue. 

B. 

 The Athridges also argue that Aetna’s participation in 

Iglesias’s defense triggered an obligation to pay interest on 

the unpaid judgment against him, even if Aetna had no 

obligation to pay the underlying judgment. Thirteen years of 

interest on $5.5 million is no small sum—according to the 

Athridges, it is more than $3 million. They locate this duty in 

the “Supplementary Payments” section of the Aetna policy, 

which provides: 

In addition to our limit of liability, we will pay on behalf 

of a covered person: 

. . . . 

Interest accruing after a judgment is entered in any 

suit we defend. Our duty to pay interest ends when we 

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offer to pay that part of the judgment which does not 

exceed our limit of liability for this coverage. 

Aetna Personal Auto Policy (Aetna Policy) at 1–2. The 

Athridges read this to require Aetna to pay postjudgment 

interest whenever it defends any suit against a covered person, 

regardless of whether it is liable for the judgment itself. 

Iglesias was a covered person at the time of the accident, and 

Pearson’s participation in his defense made that case a “suit 

[Aetna] defend[s],” therefore Aetna must pay interest on the 

award against him. Under this reading, even when a policy 

exclusion denies the insured coverage, the insurer is liable for 

postjudgment interest if the insured fails to pay. Aetna could 

terminate that obligation only by paying the judgment it did 

not owe. The magistrate judge rejected this argument, 

concluding that if the insurer is not liable on the judgment, it 

cannot be liable for postjudgment interest. We review this 

issue de novo. Segar v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d 16, 22 (D.C. Cir. 

2007). 

 

We agree with the magistrate judge that any obligation to 

pay postjudgment interest under the policy is contingent upon 

an obligation to indemnify the insured for its liability on the 

underlying claim. An insurer will often defend a lawsuit 

against the insured even when an exclusion absolves the 

insurer of any duty to indemnify. See Stevens v. United Gen. 

Title Ins. Co., 801 A.2d 61, 67 (D.C. 2002) (“[T]he duty to 

defend is broader and more extensive than the duty to 

indemnify.”). Under the Athridges’ view, defending an 

insured would require Aetna to assume liability on a judgment 

in order to avoid a bill for postjudgment interest that could 

exceed the policy’s limits. See Aetna Policy at 1–2 (“In 

addition to our limit of liability, we will pay . . . [i]nterest 

accruing after a judgment is entered . . . .” (emphasis added)). 

This reading effectively renders the policy exclusions that 

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follow the supplementary payment provisions a dead letter in 

any suit Aetna defends. To adopt it would contravene our 

obligation to “construe the contract as a whole, giving effect 

to each of its provisions, where possible.” Akassy v. William 

Penn Apartments Ltd. P’ship, 891 A.2d 291, 303 (D.C. 2006); 

see Stevens, 801 A.2d at 66 (“Because an insurance policy 

constitutes a contract, we construe it according to contract 

principles.”). Accordingly, we hold that the Aetna policy does 

not require the payment of interest on a judgment for which 

Aetna has been adjudged to have no liability and affirm the 

magistrate judge’s entry of summary judgment in favor of 

Aetna on this issue. 

The Athridges direct our attention to no case that 

convinces us to do otherwise. The cases they cite hold only 

that an insurer’s duty to pay costs in a suit it defends does not 

depend on the insurer’s liability for the judgment. See 

Knippen v. Glens Falls Ins. Co., 564 F.2d 525, 530 (D.C. Cir. 

1977); Pac. Employers Ins. Co. v. Alex Hofrichter, P.A., 670 

So. 2d 1023, 1025 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996). These cases 

provide no support for allowing the defense of a suit to create 

de facto indemnification liability. 

The Athridges concede that ours is a plausible reading of 

the policy, Tr. of Oral Argument at 19, but insist theirs is as 

well. Relying on the principle of contra proferentum, which 

holds that “any reasonable doubt which may arise as to the 

meaning or intent of” an insurance policy provision “will be 

resolved against the insurer,” Cameron v. USAA Prop. & Cas. 

Ins. Co., 733 A.2d 965, 968 (D.C. 1999), they maintain that 

we must construe the policy as they do. But contra 

proferentum “does not require courts to indulge in ‘forced 

constructions to create an obligation against the insurer.’” Id.

(quoting Boggs v. Motors Ins. Corp., 139 A.2d 733, 735 (D.C. 

1958)). The Athridges’ interpretation of the policy, which 

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permits a supplementary payment provision to manufacture 

primary liability where none otherwise exists, is the epitome 

of such a forced construction. We will not indulge it. 

III. 

We turn now to the Athridges’ challenges to the jury 

verdict that absolved Aetna of liability under the policy. In 

Aetna I, we held that the policy covered the accident only if 

Iglesias had a reasonable belief that he was entitled to use the 

Rivases’ car and remanded the case for a determination of 

whether that was in fact the case. A jury found in Aetna’s 

favor. The Athridges, presenting a variety of issues, ask us to 

set aside the verdict. We find no reason to do so. 

A. 

 

The Aetna policy purchased by Iglesias’s parents for their 

family excluded from coverage accidents involving “any 

person using a vehicle without a reasonable belief that the 

person is entitled to do so.” Aetna Policy at 2 (emphasis 

added). The Athridges argue that this provision did not 

exclude coverage for family members like Iglesias. We 

already rejected that interpretation in Aetna I, explaining that 

the phrase “any person” unambiguously encompasses family 

members. 351 F.3d at 1172. The Athridges ask us to reverse 

that decision. 

Under the law-of-the-case doctrine, we reconsider our 

previous holding in a case with multiple appeals only in 

“extraordinary circumstance[s],” such as an “intervening 

change in controlling legal authority” or if our prior decision 

is “clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.” 

LaShawn A. v. Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1393 (D.C. Cir. 1996) 

(en banc). Neither condition obtains here. For an intervening 

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change in controlling law, the Athridges indentify a District of 

Columbia Court of Appeals decision that took an expansive, 

contextual approach to the interpretation of an insurance 

policy. See Richardson v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 826 A.2d 

310, reh’g en banc granted, 832 A.2d 752 (D.C. 2003), 

vacated as moot, 844 A.2d 344 (D.C. 2004). The Athridges 

contend that Richardson casts doubt on the plain meaning 

approach we employed in Aetna I. But Richardson is not a 

controlling authority. Not only does it not address the issue 

presented in Aetna I, but the Court of Appeals granted 

rehearing en banc and then vacated the opinion after the 

parties settled. Nor can the Athridges show clear error by the 

Aetna I court, whose holding is in accord with the conclusions 

reached by a number of other courts. See, e.g., Gen. Accident 

Fire & Life Assurance Corp. v. Perry, 541 A.2d 1340, 1349 

(Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1988); St. Paul Ins. Co. v. Rutgers Cas. 

Ins. Co., 557 A.2d 1052, 1054 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 

1989); Hartford Ins. Co. of Midwest v. Halt, 646 N.Y.S.2d 

589, 594 (App. Div. 1996); Newell v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. 

Co., 432 S.E.2d 284, 290 (N.C. 1993). 

 

In an attempted end run around the law-of-the-case 

doctrine, the Athridges ask us to certify the issue decided in 

Aetna I to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. But in 

the absence of any reason for us to reconsider our prior 

decision, we see no reason to ask another court to do so. We 

deny this belated request for certification. 

B. 

The Athridges also challenge the magistrate judge’s 

exclusion of certain evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 

403. Rule 403 permits the exclusion of relevant evidence “if 

its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger 

of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the 

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jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or 

needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” FED. R. EVID. 

403. We review the magistrate judge’s decision for abuse of 

discretion, mindful that “[t]he trial court has broad discretion 

to weigh the extent of potential prejudice against the 

probative force of relevant evidence.” Fredrick v. District of 

Columbia, 254 F.3d 156, 159 (D.C. Cir. 2001). 

We first affirm the magistrate judge’s exclusion of a jury 

verdict rendered in the Athridges’ separate lawsuit against the 

Rivases. The Athridges sued on the theory that, as owners of 

the car, the Rivases were vicariously liable for the accident 

because they consented to Iglesias’s use of the car. Under 

District of Columbia law, which we discuss in the next 

section, see infra Part III.C, the Rivases could avoid liability 

by showing they gave no such consent, see Athridge v. Rivas, 

312 F.3d 474, 475 (D.C. Cir. 2002). The jury found that the 

Rivases failed to prove that they did not consent to Iglesias’s 

use of the car, and the case eventually settled on appeal for 

$2.8 million. Although there is no absolute bar to the use of 

prior verdicts, courts are wary that their admission into 

evidence “creates the possibility that the jury will defer to the 

earlier result and thus will, effectively, decide a case on 

evidence not before it.” Coleman Motor Co. v. Chrysler 

Corp., 525 F.2d 1338, 1351 (3d Cir. 1975). This possibility 

was especially problematic here. The magistrate judge noted 

that the jury found only a double negative—that the Rivases 

had not shown by a preponderance of evidence that they did 

not consent to Iglesias’s use of the car. To permit that verdict 

to be used to prove an affirmative—that the Rivases had 

consented—would imply a conclusion that the jury did not 

necessarily reach. Keeping the verdict out of evidence was not 

an abuse of discretion. 

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The magistrate judge also blocked the Athridges’ attempt 

to introduce the judge’s opinion from Iglesias’s trial, which 

included a description of Iglesias’s driving on the day of the 

accident. They hoped the judge’s description would support 

their claim that Iglesias reasonably believed he could use the 

Rivases’ car. According to the Athridges, that description 

suggests Iglesias was familiar with the car’s manual 

transmission, which might suggest that the Rivases had let 

him drive the car before, which in turn could suggest that 

Iglesias thought he could take the car on that day. This 

attenuated reasoning, relying upon suggestion upon 

suggestion upon suggestion, is offered in support of a 

conclusion that was expressly rejected by the judge’s finding 

that Iglesias “t[ook] the car without the permission of the 

owner.” Iglesias, 950 F. Supp. at 1189. As the magistrate 

judge appropriately noted, if the Athridges wanted to 

demonstrate Iglesias’s facility with the Rivases’ car, there was 

better evidence at hand: the testimony of witnesses who saw 

him driving it on the day of the accident. See Henderson v. 

George Washington Univ., 449 F.3d 127, 137 (D.C. Cir. 

2006) (“It is well established that under Rule 403, a court 

should weigh the probative value of evidence in light of 

appropriate evidentiary alternatives.”). The magistrate judge 

did not abuse his discretion in excluding the opinion. 

The Athridges finally argue that the magistrate judge 

should not have applied Rule 403 at all because Aetna was 

“bound” by the previous judge’s opinion and could not 

contest its version of the facts. Appellants’ Br. at 46. Though 

the Athridges do not use the phrase, this is an argument of 

issue preclusion, which bars relitigation of matters previously 

adjudicated. Under District of Columbia law, issue preclusion 

does not apply where issues are only similar, but not identical, 

or where the determination of an issue was “dictum” and not 

“essential to the judgment.” Hogue v. Hopper, 728 A.2d 611, 

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614 (D.C. 1999). The issues essential to the judgment in 

Iglesias’s trial were his negligence, Tommy Athridges’s 

contributory negligence, the last clear chance doctrine, and 

damages. See Iglesias, 950 F. Supp. at 1190–94. Iglesias’s 

belief about whether he had permission to use the Rivases’ car 

or even whether he had used it before had no bearing on any 

of these. Statements in the judge’s opinion addressing these 

concerns could have no preclusive effect in this matter, and 

the magistrate judge was free to apply the Rule 403 balancing 

test. 

C. 

 The Athridges also argue that the magistrate judge erred 

by failing to include in the jury instruction a reference to the 

D.C. Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act (MVSRA), 

D.C. CODE § 50-1301.08, which creates a presumption that 

any person driving a car does so with the consent of the 

registered owner, making the owner vicariously liable for the 

driver’s conduct. This presumption “places the burden of 

proof as to the question of consent upon the defendantowner.” Curtis, 537 A.2d at 1074. The Athridges wanted the 

magistrate judge to explain to the jury that “[t]here is a 

powerful presumption under the MVSRA that a driver 

operated the car with the owner’s consent.” Athridge v. Aetna 

Cas. & Sur. Co., 585 F. Supp. 2d 20, 29 (D.D.C. 2008). 

The magistrate declined to invoke the MVSRA, correctly 

noting that it would have been redundant. The jury 

instructions already explained that Aetna, because its defense 

rested on a policy exclusion, bore the burden of proving that 

Iglesias lacked a reasonable belief that he was entitled to use 

the Rivases’ car. See Cameron, 733 A.2d at 969 (explaining 

that an insurer bears the burden of proving the applicability of 

a policy exclusion). The burden-shifting mechanism of the 

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MVSRA thus had no work to do. Assuming without deciding 

that the MVSRA applies when the liability of a vehicle’s 

owner is not at issue, we review the magistrate judge’s 

“choice of the language to be used in a particlar instruction 

. . . for abuse of discretion,” Joy v. Bell Helicopter Textron, 

Inc., 999 F.2d 549, 556 (D.C. Cir. 1993), and affirm. 

D. 

 The magistrate judge separated the case into two parts, 

conducting the jury trial on whether Iglesias believed he was 

permitted to use the car before resolving the issues arising 

from Aetna’s role in Iglesias’s defense. The Athridges appeal 

this bifurcation, arguing that all the theories of liability should 

have been tried together. We review for abuse of discretion 

the decision to separate issues for trial, which may be done in 

the interest of “convenience, to avoid prejudice, or to expedite 

and economize.” FED. R. CIV. P. 42(b); see, e.g., Angelo v. 

Armstrong World Indus., Inc., 11 F.3d 957, 964 (10th Cir. 

1993). 

Bifurcation may be appropriate “where the evidence 

offered on two different issues will be wholly distinct, or 

where litigation of one issue may obviate the need to try 

another issue.” Vichare v. AMBAC Inc., 106 F.3d 457, 466 

(2d Cir. 1996) (citation omitted). Both conditions were 

present here. Evidence of Aetna’s involvement in Iglesias’s 

trial in 1996 had no relation to what Iglesias believed when he 

took the wheel of the Rivases’ car in 1987. And had the jury 

found in favor of the Athridges on the latter issue, there would 

have been no need to consider the former. 

Even so, bifurcation would have been improper if it was 

“unfair or prejudicial” to the Athridges. Angelo, 11 F.3d at 

964. Their claims of prejudice, however, fall flat. They first 

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contend that bifurcation unfairly kept them from using the 

judge’s opinion with its supposedly preclusive findings to 

show that Iglesias had permission to use the car. But we have 

just held that the Athridges could not use the judge’s opinion 

in this way. The next alleged harm from bifurcation came 

from the magistrate judge granting Aetna’s motion to open 

and close the case. He did so because Aetna bore the burden 

of proof on the sole issue to be argued at the first stage: 

whether Iglesias lacked permission to drive the Rivases’ car. 

See Silver v. New York Life Ins. Co., 116 F.2d 59, 61–62 (7th 

Cir. 1940) (upholding the district court’s decision to permit an 

insurer to open and close the case where the only contested 

issue was the insurer’s affirmative defense). The Athridges, 

however, completely fail to explain how the order of 

presentation hindered their case. Cf. Lillycrop v. Kinsky, 300 

F.2d 736, 737 (D.C. Cir. 1962) (“[T]he ruling of a trial court 

on the question as to who should open and close is usually not 

reversible on appeal.”). Finally, the Athridges assert that 

bifurcation prevented them “from presenting their case to a 

jury in a way that made sense and told the full story.” 

Appellants’ Br. at 45. The insinuation that the jury could not 

determine what Iglesias reasonably believed on the day of the 

accident without considering the other possible bases of 

Aetna’s liability is not only logically deficient, but is belied 

by how the Athridges litigated this case. They did not see fit 

to mention their alternative theories of liability in Aetna I

even though a major question in that appeal was whether 

Iglesias’s state of mind was subject to a genuine factual 

dispute. We thus see no prejudice in omitting the alternative 

theories of liability from the jury’s consideration, and the 

Athridges identify no other parts of their “story” that went 

untold. Finding no prejudice, we conclude there was no abuse 

of discretion in the magistrate judge’s bifurcation of the case. 

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Having dispatched the challenges to the magistrate 

judge’s conduct of the trial, we uphold the jury verdict. 

IV. 

 For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is 

Affirmed. 

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