Source: https://casetext.com/case/trepel-v-roadway-exp-inc
Timestamp: 2018-10-20 02:17:03
Document Index: 672636327

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 370', '§ 1005', '§ 14706', '§ 1005', '§ 1005', '§ 6272', '§ 6273']

Trepel v. Roadway Exp., Inc, 194 F.3d 708 | Casetext
Trepel v. Roadway Exp., Inc.
194 F.3d 708 (6th Cir. 1999)
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Roadway Exp., Inc.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth CircuitOct 15, 1999
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Nos. 97-4152/4162
Argued: December 15, 1998
Decided and Filed: October 15, 1999 Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Akron. No. 95-00422 — Sam H. Bell, District Judge.
ARGUED: P. David Palmiere, McCONNELL PALMIERE, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for Appellant.
Barry L. Springel, JONES, DAY, REAVIS POGUE, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.
ON BRIEF: P. David Palmiere, McCONNELL PALMIERE, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for Appellant.
RYAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which COLE, J., joined. SUHRHEINRICH, J. (pp. 20-26), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Trepel purchased a wood carving of a snake, called a Baga serpent, from Mourtala Diop, a New York artist, for $15,000. Trepel claims this price was significantly lower than the actual value of the carving because Diop was desperate for money. Diop took the carving, which was about seven feet long, to Transfers International Packing Shipping, Inc. (TIPS) in New Jersey, and paid $150 to have it shipped to Trepel in Arizona. TIPS transported the package to Roadway, and prepared a delivery receipt, noting that the package was a 20-pound sculpture. Mario Castaneda, the owner of TIPS, testified that he does not often engage in domestic shipping, and he has only worked with Roadway once before. TIPS did not tell Roadway the value of the carving, and Roadway never asked for that information. Roadway transported the package to Arizona, and upon being notified of its arrival in Arizona, Trepel sent his housekeeper to retrieve it. She unwrapped the package at the defendant's business premises and discovered that the carving had been broken into three pieces. The housekeeper refused delivery. About two weeks later, on February 25, 1993, Trepel submitted a claim form to Roadway and was told that he need not do anything further to complete the claim. At the time, Trepel was unaware of the actual value of the carving.
The first question we must decide is whether 49 CFR § 1005.2(b) precludes recovery because the claim form Trepel submitted to Roadway did not contain a specified or determinable amount as required by the regulation. Section 1005.2(b) provides:
A written . . . communication . . . from a claimant, filed with a proper carrier within the time limits specified in the bill of lading or contract of carriage or transportation and: (1) Containing facts sufficient to identify the baggage or shipment . . . of property, (2) asserting liability for alleged loss, damage, injury, or delay, and (3) making claim for the payment of a specified or determinable amount of money, shall be considered as sufficient compliance with the provisions for filing claims. . . .
In order to resolve this issue, a fuller development of the facts is necessary. After Trepel's housekeeper discovered that the carving was broken, Trepel filed a cargo loss and damage claim, revealing that Trepel or TIPS had never been given a bill of lading, only a delivery receipt. On the back of the claim form were various regulations regarding the Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C. § 14706, including 49 CFR § 1005.2(b). In the place where Trepel was to specify the amount of the loss or damage, he inserted, "to be determined but not to exceed $150,000.00." In due course, Roadway moved for summary judgment, claiming that strict compliance with the claim filing requirement is necessary for the plaintiff's prima facie case. The court disagreed and held that Trepel had substantially complied with the requirement, under the law of this circuit.
Because this issue involves a question of law, we will conduct a de novo review. See KT Enter., Inc. v. Zurich Ins. Co., 97 F.3d 171, 176 (6th Cir. 1996).
In the third case defendant cites — Pathway Bellows, Inc. v. Blanchette, 630 F.2d 900 (2d Cir. 1980) — two elements were missing from the written claim: (1) an amount of the damages, and (2) an assertion that the carrier was liable. The plaintiff attempted to file a second claim letter with the missing information, but it was filed one day after the time limit for filing had expired. Because it was one day late, the court held that the claim was time barred. Id. at 905. Blanchette is the closest a court of appeals has come to stating a strict compliance test. However, in this case, it was the time limit for which strict compliance was required, not the specific elements of the claim.
It would appear that the purposes of the regulation requiring the filing of a written claim form — (1) identifying the lost or damaged baggage; (2) asserting liability for loss; and (3) requiring a "specified or determinable" amount of loss — are to provide the carrier with notice of the nature of the baggage or property that is lost or damaged, the fact that the claimant intends to hold the carrier responsible, and a reasonably accurate indication of the value of the claim. In many cases, the claimant may not know the specific value of the article or articles that are lost or damaged, and may require some time to obtain that information; indeed, it appears this is such a case. We agree with the view articulated by the Ninth Circuit, that the purpose of the claim regulation is not to permit the carrier to escape liability but to insure that the carrier has enough information to begin processing the claim. Roadway, the carrier in the case at hand, did begin investigating and processing the claim. It is clear it was on notice of the claim; therefore, we hold that Trepel substantially complied with 49 CFR § 1005.2. We think the claim form Trepel filed complies with the principle laid down in Ford Motor Co., 795 F.2d 538, which we read to establish informally, what today we declare explicitly: substantial compliance with section 1005.2 suffices.
Trepel responds with two arguments: First, he argues that the bill of lading does not apply to him, because he never received the bill of lading; the woodcarving was shipped with only a delivery receipt which does not contain the quoted clause. Second, Trepel argues that even if the tariff did apply, it specifically states that Roadway gets the benefit of insurance on the property only if doing so does "not avoid the policies or contracts of insurance." Trepel points out that his insurance policy has a provision that states:
The district court denied the setoff, holding that the insurance provision trumps the language of the bill of lading, and that the insurer's agreement to waive its subrogation rights should not change the result. Roadway disagrees and assigns error. Because this issue involves a question of law, we will review the issue de novo. See KT Enter., 97 F.3d at 176.
If the shipper desires to tender a shipment requiring carrier liability in excess of 50.00 per pound, per package, or 250,000 per shipment, whichever is lower, then the shipper must indicate in writing on the bill of lading at the time of shipment the total dollar amount of excess coverage requested. . . .
Because this is an issue of law, we will conduct a de novo review. See KT Enter., 97 F.3d at 176. Motor carriers may limit their liability for an item lost or damaged to a value established by written declaration of the shipper or by written agreement of the carrier and the shipper. See Hughes Aircraft Co. v. North Am. Van Lines, Inc., 970 F.2d 609, 611-12 (9th Cir. 1992). In order to limit liability, four elements must be met: (1) the carrier must maintain a tariff in compliance with the requirements of the ICC; (2) the carrier must give the shipper a reasonable opportunity to choose between two or more levels of liability; (3) the carrier must obtain the shipper's agreement as to his choice of carrier liability limit; and (4) the carrier must issue a bill of lading prior to moving the shipment that reflects any such agreement. See id. "The carrier has the burden of proving that it has complied with these requirements." See id. at 612. Furthermore, the filing of a tariff alone does not limit the carrier's liability; the shipper must be given a reasonable opportunity to choose to accept the carrier's proposed limit. See id.
Because TIPS was most likely aware of the tariffs in the bill of lading, Roadway contends that Trepel is charged with knowledge of the tariff, relying on the rule that all shippers and their consignees are charged with such knowledge. See Drug Toilet Preparation Traffic Conference, Inc. v. United States, 797 F.2d 1054, 1061 (D.C. Cir. 1986). However, we have previously held that "where a carrier is attempting to limit its liability for full actual damages, the caselaw is clear that the carrier must show more than an appropriate tariff schedule; the carrier must show, among other things, that liability was limited by a written agreement." Baker Perkins, Inc. v. Midland Moving and Storage Co., 920 F.2d 1301, 1307 (6th Cir. 1990) (emphasis omitted). Here, there is no written agreement to limit Roadway's liability. The delivery receipt is the only writing between the parties, and it does not contain the tariff upon which Roadway is attempting to rely. Accordingly, we hold that Roadway cannot limit its liability, and we affirm the district court's judgment in this respect.
Trepel's first argument is that the district court abused its discretion by not allowing Trepel to depose Shelley Dinhofer, the owner of a Baga serpent, on the eve of trial. According to Trepel, his counsel and Roadway's counsel had an agreement to take the deposition of one of the defendant's experts in New York, immediately prior to trial. Because Dinhofer lived in New York, Trepel wished to conduct her deposition on the same day Roadway's expert's deposition was scheduled. Trepel also claims that he was accommodating defense counsel's schedule because defense counsel was out of town for 11 days prior to trial. Roadway's counsel vigorously objected to the "eve-of-trial" deposition of Dinhofer and the district court refused to order it. The district court allowed Trepel to depose Roadway's expert after trial had begun, but prohibited even a telephone deposition of Dinhofer.
We review a district court's decision to limit discovery for an abuse of discretion. See Tate v. Boeing Helicopters, 140 F.3d 654, 661 (6th Cir. 1998). An abuse of discretion is defined as a definite and firm conviction that the trial court committed a clear error of judgment — a somewhat illogical definition, but one that is too well-settled to be successfully questioned at this late date. See Dean v. Motel 6 Operating L.P., 134 F.3d 1269, 1276 (6th Cir. 1998). Matters of discovery are in the sound discretion of the district court. We should not interfere with a district court's discretionary rulings concerning the scope and timeliness of discovery unless we are convinced that the trial court's ruling resulted in substantial unfair prejudice to the complaining litigant. See In re Air Crash Disaster, 86 F.3d 498, 516 (6th Cir. 1996).
The Supreme Court has recently stated that all evidentiary rulings are reviewed for "abuse of discretion." See General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 118 S.Ct. 512, 517 (1997). There, the Court was not dealing with an alleged hearsay rule violation, but its sweeping "all evidentiary ruling" statement rather clearly means what it says. It is not clear to us how a trial court would have "discretion" to ignore the definition of inadmissible hearsay in Federal Rule of Evidence 801 or the foundation requirements for establishing exceptions to the hearsay rule under Federal Rules of Evidence 803 or 804, but it is not this court's privilege to "question why." Therefore, in disregard of our heretofore well-settled precedent that hearsay evidentiary rulings are reviewed de novo, see United States v. Fountain, 2 F.3d 656, 668 (6th Cir. 1993), we shall review the district court's ruling for an abuse of discretion.
However, Rule 703 of the Federal Rules of Evidence states that if facts or data are the type that are "reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence." This rule has frequently been interpreted to allow into evidence hearsay statements. See Engebretsen v. Fairchild Aircraft Corp., 21 F.3d 721, 728 (6th Cir. 1994); Kingsley Assocs., Inc. v. Del-Met, Inc., 918 F.2d 1277, 1286-87 (6th Cir. 1990); Mannino v. International Mfg. Co., 650 F.2d 846, 850-51 (6th Cir. 1981). Such evidence is not admitted for the truth of the matter asserted, but may be admitted to establish the basis for the expert's opinion. See Engebretsen, 21 F.3d at 729. The question is whether the material sought to be introduced is of the type reasonably relied upon by experts in the field. See Mannino, 650 F.2d at 853. It is clear from the record that experts in the field of appraising African art, such as the carving involved here, frequently rely upon evidence of comparable sales, regardless of how that evidence comes to them. It appears from the record that the court did not consider Rule 703 when it excluded all mention of the Dinhofer serpent. We conclude that the court erred — that is, abused its "discretion" — by not allowing the experts to testify regarding the basis of their opinions.
A. Yes. He asked me to buy his snake. He pleaded with me to buy his snake, and I didn't want the snake. And I tried to dissuade him as much as possible by saying such things as, "Mourtala, I don't want the snake. I don't like the snake, and I have no use for the snake," so forth and so on.
A. No. I just was looking for an excuse to turn down his plea to purchase the snake. . . .
And he pleaded with me, he said, "Make me an offer. Offer me anything. Please make me an offer, anything, for the snake, whatever it would be." . . .
So I offered $15,000 and he immediately said sold or agreed.
However, there remains the issue of whether the court properly overruled Trepel's request that Roadway be required to introduce the balance of the deposition answer in order to illuminate the context and thus the full meaning of the limited portion of the answer the court admitted. Trepel claims that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 32(a)(4) applies here. That rule states, in pertinent part, that "[i]f only part of a deposition is offered in evidence by a party, an adverse party may require the offeror to introduce any other part which ought in fairness to be considered with the part introduced, and any party may introduce any other parts." Fed.R.Civ.P. 32(a)(4). Similarly, Federal Rule of Evidence 106 states that "[w]hen a writing or recorded statement or part thereof is introduced by a party, an adverse party may require the introduction at that time of any other part or any other writing or recorded statement which ought in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with it." However, Roadway points to this court's admonition that the completeness doctrine embodied in Rule 106 should not be used to make something admissible that would otherwise be excluded. See United States v. Costner, 684 F.2d 370, 373 (6th Cir. 1982).
Roadway was allowed to admit the deposition testimony, and in doing so, evade the bar of the inadmissible hearsay rule, because Trepel's deposition statement is an admission by a party opponent, and therefore, "not hearsay" under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2). However, Rule 32(a)(4) states that "[i]f only part of a deposition is offered in evidence by a party [(Roadway)], an adverse party [(Trepel)] may require the offeror [(Roadway)] to introduce any other part which ought in fairness to be considered with the part introduced. . . ." (Emphasis added.) Trepel can require that Roadway introduce enough of the deposition to put the originally admitted statement into context because Trepel's deposition answer is not hearsay if introduced by Roadway. The district court never made a determination as to which additional deposition statements should "in fairness" be introduced along with the statement Roadway introduced. We will give it the chance to do so. On remand, if Roadway wishes to introduce the "I don't want the snake" statement, and the $15,000 purchase price statement, it will be required to introduce enough of the surrounding questions and answers to put the statements into context.
[48] SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Fed.R.Evid. 703 (emphasis added)
The Rule was intended to "bring judicial practice into line with the practice of the experts themselves when not in court" by broadening the permissible bases for expert opinions that had previously been limited at common law. Fed.R.Evid. 703, Advisory Committee Notes.
However, the rule does not give an expert free reign to base an opinion on any evidence, including inherently unreliable or untrustworthy evidence. Rather, the rule limits the bases of expert opinions to that which is "reasonably relied upon by experts." Fed.R.Evid. 703. The rule was not meant to allow unreliable and untrustworthy evidence to be introduced to the court through the use of an expert witness. Instead, the Advisory Committee Notes caution that Rule 703 limits the bases of expert opinions to otherwise inadmissible evidence that is also reliable in order to prevent Rule 703 from creating a "back-door" exception to the other rules of exclusion:
Fed.R.Evid. 703, Advisory Committee Notes; see also 29 Charles Alan Wright Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure: Evidence § 6272 (1997) ("[B]ecause Rule 703 permits expert testimony to be based on inadmissible evidence, the provision necessarily must concern itself with the reliability of that testimony. . . . An expert opinion based on inadmissable evidence such as hearsay can pose the same sorts of reliability problems as the inadmissible evidence on which it is based.").
The cases cited by the majority merely stand for the general rule that an expert may base an opinion on otherwise inadmissible evidence. They do not stand for the proposition that such inadmissible evidence need not be reliable since each of the cited cases involved expert opinions that were based on reliable information. See Engebretsen v. Fairchild Aircraft Corp., 21 F.3d 721, 728-29 (6th Cir. 1994) (court allowed experts' testimony based on their investigations of the airline's emergency landing, which included wiring diagrams, reports, tapes, pilots' statements, and various tests conducted on the airplane, but the court also noted that "Rules 702 and 703 carve out a narrow exception to the rule against the admission of hearsay.") (emphasis added); Kinglsey Assoc., Inc. v. Del-Met, Inc., 918 F.2d 1277, 1286-87 (6th Cir. 1990) (expert testimony based on hearsay, which included the expert's research into the automobile industry and confidential documents from General Motors, was admissible); Mannino v. International Mfg. Co., 650 F.2d 846, 852 (6th Cir 1981) (expert testimony based on the expert's experience with bio-mechanics, various studies, and articles in that field was admissible since those are proper bases for expert opinions under Rule 703). These cases do not remove from the court its obligation to ensure that the basis of an expert's opinion is both reliable and reasonable since none of the cases cited by the majority involved the type of unreliable double, and, even, triple hearsay, involved in the case at bar.
In this case, Trepel seeks to admit evidence of an out-of-court conversation that he had with Dinhofer to establish the amount of his damages. Not only was the conversation inadmissible hearsay, but the conversation is inherently untrustworthy as it directly serves Trepel's financial self-interest in this case. The conversation involved hearsay within hearsay that was speculative in nature. There is no way for the court to determine whether, or how, or under what circumstances the conversation took place, or to verify the substance of the conversation and its accuracy. It is also impossible to determine whether the party who made the $2 million offer would have followed through with the sale, or whether the offer was made in the first place, or how it was made.
Moreover, "the Rules of Evidence . . . assign to the trial judge the task of ensuring that an expert's testimony both rests on a reliable foundation and is relevant to the task at hand." Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597 (1993); Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. ___, 119 S.Ct 1167, 1174-75 (1999) (applying Daubert gatekeeping role of trial judges to all expert testimony). Although it is true that an expert may base an opinion on otherwise inadmissible evidence, the courts are constantly looking behind an expert's opinion to determine if the basis for that opinion is reliable and trustworthy. See, e.g., Dallas Mavis Forwarding Co., Inc., v. Stegall, 659 F.2d 721, 722 (6th Cir. 1981) ("We agree with the district court that under [Rule 703] the opinion of the trooper was not admissible, because it was based on no physical evidence . . . and was derived primarily from the story of a biased eyewitness. This is the sort of hearsay testimony whose admission the Rule [703] was meant to foreclose."); Marcel v. Placid Oil Co., 11 F.3d 563, 567 n. 6 (5th Cir. 1994) ("Experts generally may rely on hearsay, however, if the data is reliable and qualified under Rule 703) (emphasis added) (citation omitted); Gong v. Hirsch, 913 F.2d 1269, 1273 (7th Cir. 1990) ("Given the obvious concern over the trustworthiness of a statement made under circumstances such as these, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in preventing the plaintiff's medical expert from reading from [the] letter or otherwise stating that his opinion was based on the letter" when the letter was presumably for the purpose of getting disability benefits for the decedent in the malpractice lawsuit, who was also the likely source of the letter's information); Ricciardi v. Children's Hosp. Med. Center, 811 F.2d 18, 24-25 (1st Cir. 1987) (holding the district court's decision not to allow an expert to rely on a note found in a hospital record was within the court's discretion because the court found that the note was too unreliable to be used as the basis for an expert opinion); Soden v. Freightliner Corp., 714 F.2d 498, 503-06 (5th Cir. 1983) (court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded an expert's opinion that was based on unreliable accident statistics); In re "Agent Orange" Product Liab. Litig., 611 F. Supp. 1223, 1245 (D.C.N.Y. 1985) ("Rule 703 permits experts to rely upon hearsay. . . . Nevertheless, the court may not abdicate its independent responsibilities to decide if the bases meet minimum standards of reliability as a condition of admissibility. If the underlying data are so lacking in probative force and reliability that no reasonable expert could base an opinion on them, an opinion which rests entirely upon them must be excluded.") (citations omitted).
By ensuring that an expert's opinion is based on reliable information, the courts prevent the abuse of expert testimony by those who seek to use experts as a pretense for the admission of otherwise inadmissible and unreliable hearsay. See 29 Charles Alan Wright Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure: Evidence § 6273 (1997) (". . . Rule 703 does not authorize admitting hearsay on the pretense that it is the basis for expert opinion when, in fact, the expert adds nothing to the out-of-court statements other than transmitting them to the jury. In such a case, Rule 703 is simply inapplicable and the usual rules regulating the admissibility of evidence control."); see also Law v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 185 F.R.D. 324, 341 (D. Kan. 1999) ("The NCAA basically presented [the expert] as a channeler, seeking to present non-expert, otherwise inadmissible hearsay through the mouth of an economist.").