Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_17-cv-02598/USCOURTS-caed-2_17-cv-02598-8/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

----oo0oo----

JENNIFER LANDEROS, individually 

and as successor in interest to 

DANIEL LANDEROS, Deceased; DEJA 

LANDEROS, individually and as

successor in interest to DANIEL 

LANDEROS, Deceased; B.M.L., 

individually and as successor in

interest to DANIEL LANDEROS, 

Deceased, by and through 

JENNIFER LANDEROS, as Guardian

ad Litem; J.J.L., individually 

and as successor in interest to 

DANIEL LANDEROS, Deceased, by

and through JENNIFER LANDEROS, 

as Guardian ad Litem; D.F.L., 

individually and as successor in

interest to DANIEL LANDEROS, 

Deceased, by and through 

JENNIFER LANDEROS, as Guardian

ad Litem; and T.D.L., 

individually and as successor in 

interest to DANIEL LANDEROS, 

Deceased, by and through 

JENNIFER LANDEROS, as Guardian

ad Litem,

Plaintiffs,

v.

SAMUEL SCHAFER; STEVEN HOLSTAD;

JUSTIN PARKER; PATRICK SCOTT; 

JEREMY BANKS; and CITY OF ELK 

No. 2:17-cv-02598 WBS CKD

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: 

MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL

Case 2:17-cv-02598-WBS-CKD Document 144 Filed 11/04/22 Page 1 of 10
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GROVE,

Defendants.

----oo0oo----

Plaintiffs have moved for a new trial under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a). (Docket No. 130.) The court held 

an evidentiary hearing on the motion on October 31, 2022. 

Pursuant to Rule 59(a)(1)(A), a “court may, on motion, 

grant a new trial . . . after a jury trial, for any reason for 

which a new trial has heretofore been granted in an action at law 

in federal court.” “[E]ven if substantial evidence supports the 

jury’s verdict, a trial court may grant a new trial if the 

verdict is contrary to the clear weight of the evidence, or is 

based upon evidence which is false, or to prevent, in the sound 

discretion of the trial court, a miscarriage of justice.” Silver 

Sage Partners, Ltd. v. City of Desert Hot Springs, 251 F.3d 814, 

819 (9th Cir. 2001) (citation and internal punctuation omitted). 

Grounds for a new trial include newly discovered 

evidence and discovery misconduct. Jones v. Aero/Chem Corp., 921 

F.2d 875, 878-79 (9th Cir. 1990). A party seeking a new trial 

on the basis of newly discovered evidence must show the evidence 

“(1) existed at the time of trial, (2) could not have been 

discovered through due diligence, and (3) was of such magnitude 

that the production of it earlier would have been likely to 

change the disposition of the case.” Id. at 878 (citation and 

internal punctuation omitted). A party seeking a new trial 

because of misconduct must show either (1) the verdict was 

obtained through fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct, 

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by clear and convincing evidence; or (2) the conduct complained 

of prevented the losing party from fully and fairly presenting 

his case or defense. Id. at 878-79 (citation omitted). 

“[I]n considering a Rule 59 motion for new trial, [the 

court] is not required to view the trial evidence in the light 

most favorable to the verdict. Instead, the district court can 

weigh the evidence and assess the credibility of the witnesses.” 

Experience Hendrix L.L.C. v. Hendrixlicensing.com Ltd., 762 F.3d 

829, 842 (9th Cir. 2014). The Ninth Circuit has emphasized that, 

under Rule 59, the district court has “the duty to weigh the 

evidence as the court saw it, and to set aside the verdict of the 

jury, even though supported by substantial evidence, where, in 

the court’s conscientious opinion, the verdict is contrary to the 

clear weight of the evidence.” Molski v. M.J. Cable, Inc., 481 

F.3d 724, 729 (9th Cir. 2007) (citation and internal punctuation 

omitted). 

Plaintiffs move for a new trial under Rule 59(a)(1) on 

the basis of false evidence, newly discovered evidence, and 

discovery misconduct. Specifically, plaintiffs claim that a new 

trial is required because (1) defendants did not disclose Dr. 

Jason Tovar as a retained expert witness; (2) defense counsel 

implied and/or told the court and jury that Dr. Tovar was an 

independent witness; and (3) defense counsel told the jury that 

he and Dr. Tovar had never met, even though defendants paid Dr. 

Tovar $4,000 for witness fees, defense counsel talked with Dr. 

Tovar over the phone, and defense counsel previously deposed Dr. 

Tovar in another case. In essence, plaintiffs argue that in 

2020, defense counsel hired Dr. Tovar as a retained expert and 

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intentionally withheld that information from the court, the 

plaintiffs, and the jury.

At the October 31, 2022 hearing, the court heard 

testimony from Dr. Tovar about his role in this case. 

Specifically, Dr. Tovar is the Sacramento County forensic 

pathologist who performed the autopsy on Daniel Landeros. He was 

presented at trial as an impartial expert, not retained by either 

side, who had nothing to gain personally by testifying in this 

case. That was the impression that the court, and presumably the 

jury, got at the time of trial. As it turns out, from his

testimony at the hearing on this motion, that was not entirely 

accurate. When someone calls Dr. Tovar on the Sacramento County 

telephone line to request his deposition or trial testimony about 

an autopsy he has performed, he transfers the call or asks them 

to call back on his personal line. He then offers to consult and 

testify for a fee of $400 per hour. This fee, the court learned 

at the hearing on this motion, does not go to the County. 

Instead, Dr. Tovar does this work on his “personal time” as a

sort of “side hustle” and keeps the fee for himself. Dr. Tovar 

testified that his superiors at the County were fully aware and 

approved of this procedure.

The court finds that defense counsel Bruce Praet was 

unaware of Dr. Tovar’s arrangement with the County until sometime 

after the trial. Mr. Praet did not intend to employ Dr. Tovar as 

a retained expert. Consistent with that intent, Mr. Praet 

provided Dr. Tovar only with his autopsy report and copies of the 

materials which had been provided to him at the time he performed 

the autopsy and prepared his report, including body cam videos of 

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the decedent’s arrest. Mr. Praet was unaware that he could 

secure Dr. Tovar’s testimony for trial by paying anything other 

than the $400 hourly rate Dr. Tovar told him he charged. 

Additionally, plaintiffs’ counsel would have quickly determined 

Dr. Tovar’s hourly rate if they had contacted the County to 

arrange for his deposition or trial testimony.1

I. Analysis

The court first determines that a new trial is not 

required based on defendants’ failure to disclose Dr. Tovar as a 

retained expert. The court agrees that failure to properly 

disclose experts may be grounds for granting a new trial. See, 

e.g., Aero/Chem, 921 F.2d at 878-79. However, defendants 

disclosed Dr. Tovar as a non-retained expert, and as such they 

were not required to disclose him as a retained expert. Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(B) states that the disclosure of 

experts “must be accompanied by a written report--prepared and 

signed by the witness--if the witness is one retained or 

specially employed to provide expert testimony in the case.” In 

contrast, non-retained experts such as treating physicians who 

testify only as to their own observations and conclusions formed 

during treatment are not required to provide expert reports and 

need only be disclosed as expert “percipient” witnesses. See, 

e.g., Goodman v. Staples The Office Superstore, LLC, 644 F.3d 

817, 824-25 (9th Cir. 2011) (treating physicians are generally 

not subject to retained expert requirements of Rule 26(a)(2)(B) 

1 Notably, plaintiff’s own expert disclosures, which 

listed Dr. Tovar as a percipient expert witness, noted that “[i]t 

is believed the County of Sacramento charges $315 per hour for 

Dr. Tovar’s testimony.” (Opp’n Ex. 4 at 3 (Docket No. 134-4).)

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because they are percipient witnesses of the treatment they

rendered, but are subject to these requirements when they offer 

opinions beyond the scope of treatment rendered). 

As discussed above, Dr. Tovar performed the autopsy in 

this case, wrote the autopsy report, and was called to discuss 

his own observations and opinions developed during the autopsy

and drafting of the report, much like a treating physician would

testify of his treatment of a patient. Dr. Tovar then testified 

consistent with his report. The court recognizes that defense 

counsel and Dr. Tovar had limited telephone conversations prior 

to trial and defendants paid Dr. Tovar his customary witness fee 

after trial. However, plaintiffs have provided no authority, and 

the court is unaware of any, holding that such limited prior 

conversations and payment of witness fees after trial transforms 

a percipient expert witness into a retained expert subject to 

Rule 26(a)(2)(B). Indeed, it cannot be disputed that nonretained expert witnesses should be paid a reasonable fee by the 

party taking a deposition.2 See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(E)(i) 

(party seeking discovery must pay expert a reasonable fee for 

time spent in responding to discovery); Axelson v. Hartford Ins. 

2 Plaintiffs rely on, among other cases, In re: DePuy 

Orthopaedics, Inc., Pinnacle Hip Implant Product Liability 

Litigation, 888 F.3d 753 (5th Cir. 2018), to argue that Dr. Tovar 

should have been disclosed as a retained expert, though the facts 

of that case are so egregious that the case is of little help to 

them. In DePuy, plaintiffs’ counsel donated $10,000 to one 

expert’s alma mater five weeks before trial, and after trial, 

paid that expert $35,000 and another expert $30,000 for their 

“pro bono” testimony, but plaintiff’s counsel specifically 

represented to the court and the jury multiple times that these 

experts were not retained and were not paid for their time. Id.

at 788-92.

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Co. of the Midw., No. 2:11-cv-01827-RCJ-GWF, 2013 WL 1261757, at 

*2-3 (D. Nev. Mar. 26, 2013) (treating physicians are entitled to 

a reasonable expert’s fee for time spent in depositions). 

Further, while defense counsel agreed in 2020 to pay 

Dr. Tovar his normal witness fee for any testimony he provided, 

such “agreement” was simply an acknowledgement of Dr. Tovar’s 

customary fee, and no payment was made until after his testimony 

in 2022. Defense counsel also reiterated to Dr. Tovar before 

trial that he should not review the retained expert reports in 

this case and should only rely on his own observations and 

findings. Dr. Tovar then in fact testified as to those 

observations and findings. Under these circumstances, defendants 

properly disclosed Dr. Tovar as a non-retained percipient expert 

witness. Accordingly, the failure to disclose Dr. Tovar as a 

retained expert witness does not warrant a new trial. 

Plaintiffs next contend that a new trial is warranted 

because defense counsel told the court and jury that Dr. Tovar 

was an independent witness. Dr. Tovar does apparently charge 

$400 to litigants who request his testimony. Thus, if plaintiffs 

had called him at trial (which was a possibility, because Dr. 

Tovar was listed on plaintiffs’ witness list), they presumably 

would have been subject to the same fee and would have made calls 

similar to those between defense counsel and Dr. Tovar to arrange 

for his testimony.3 The court has also already discussed how Dr. 

3 Plaintiffs also insinuate that defense counsel misled 

the court and jury about Dr. Tovar’s trial subpoena. While it 

seems likely that Dr. Tovar would have appeared without the 

necessity of a subpoena, the court notes (1) both the court and 

plaintiffs’ counsel recommended that defense counsel subpoena him 

to ensure his appearance, given possible scheduling issues and 

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Tovar testified to his own observations and findings formed 

during the autopsy and drafting of his autopsy report, and did 

not review any materials beyond what he had in 2016. Under these 

circumstances, defense counsel’s representations of Dr. Tovar as

independent were not false and did not result in a miscarriage of 

justice.

Similarly, defense counsel’s statement to the jury that 

he had never met Dr. Tovar was not false and did not result in a 

miscarriage of justice. First, the court finds credible Mr. 

Praet’s representation that he did not remember deposing Dr. 

Tovar in 2018, given the passage of time. Second, there is 

clearly a difference between meeting someone in person and 

talking on the telephone, and Mr. Praet believed they were 

meeting in person for the first time. While plaintiffs’ counsel 

ascribes nefarious purposes to Mr. Praet’s statements and these 

actions, such as bolstering his witness at the expense of 

plaintiffs’ witnesses, the court finds none. 

In order to grant a new trial, the court need not find 

that any omission or misrepresentation of evidence is 

intentional, or that the result of trial would be different if 

the evidence had not been withheld or there had been no discovery 

misconduct. Aero/Chem, 921 F.2d at 879; Schreiber Foods, Inc. v. 

Beatrice Cheese, Inc., 402 F.3d 1198, 1206 (Fed. Cir. 2005). 

plaintiffs’ counsel’s representation that they might not call him 

as a witness (see Docket No. 130-2 at 22); and (2) defense 

counsel did in fact issue a trial subpoena to Dr. Tovar. 

Plaintiffs’ counsel speculated at the hearing on this motion that 

Mr. Praet manufactured a scheduling conflict in order to call his 

witness during plaintiffs’ case in chief and disrupt plaintiffs’ 

presentation. There is no evidence to support this speculation.

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Nevertheless, the court has no trouble determining that the 

verdict in this case was not against the clear weight of the 

evidence, even taking away Dr. Tovar’s testimony. While the case 

was well litigated on both sides, there was ample evidence 

supporting the jury’s determination that no excessive force was 

used, particularly the body cam video of the decedent’s arrest. 

Given the circumstances surrounding the incident, the jury 

reasonably determined that the officers used an appropriate 

amount of force to restraint the decedent. 

The court also cannot help but note that Dr. Tovar’s 

testimony was limited to addressing his autopsy and the ultimate 

cause of the decedent’s death. However, the jury did not reach 

the issue of causation in its verdict, given its determination 

that no excessive force was used and that defendants were not 

negligent. (Verdict Form (Docket No. 114).) 4 Plaintiffs’ 

counsel opined at oral argument that the jury’s determination on 

excessive force may have been influenced by Dr. Tovar’s testimony 

that the cause of death was a heart attack and methamphetamine 

overdose. While that may have been conceivably possible, the 

court finds it highly unlikely given the clarity of the court’s 

instructions and the verdict form. 

4 The verdict form, agreed upon by the parties, 

instructed the jury to answer, among other things, (1) whether 

defendants used excessive force, (2) whether any excessive force 

was a cause of injury to the decedent, (3) whether defendants 

acted negligently, and (4) whether any negligence was a 

substantial factor in causing the decedent’s death. (Docket No. 

114). The verdict form instructed the jury not to answer whether 

defendants’ excessive force caused the decedent’s harm if it 

found that defendants did not use excessive force, and not to 

answer whether defendants’ negligence was a substantial factor in 

the decedent’s death if it found defendants were not negligent. 

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The court has serious questions about the propriety of 

Dr. Tovar’s ability to personally charge $400 an hour for his 

trial testimony relating to his work as a public servant. 

However, on the motion for new trial, at issue is whether defense 

counsel’s conduct during discovery or trial intentionally or 

inadvertently resulted in the presentation of materially false or 

misleading evidence or a miscarriage of justice. Plaintiffs have 

not shown that this to be the case. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that plaintiff’s Motion for New 

Trial (Docket No. 130) be, and the same hereby is, DENIED.

Dated: November 4, 2022

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