Opinion ID: 4522406
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bitters’s Appeal

Text: Bitters asserts that the district court committed three errors in denying his motion for judgment as a matter of law and instructing the jury. First, he argues that the estate’s fraud and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims were time-barred under Nebraska’s two-year limitations period for claims of “professional negligence,” Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-222, and that the district court erred by instead instructing the jury to apply the four-year limitations period for claims of negligence and fraud, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-207. We conclude that any potential error did not affect Bitters’s substantial rights. See Zebley, 625 F.3d at 455. The district court limited the fraud claim against Bitters to “the estate’s claim that William E. Bitters represented to Ms. Petersen that he would seek repayment from John L. Henry after the loan became due and did not do so.” And it limited the breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim against Bitters to “(1) the estate’s claim that William E. Bitters told John L. Henry not to repay the loan in February of 2009 and [to] extend the term of the loan for one year, and (2) the estate’s claim that William E. Bitters represented to Ms. Petersen that he would seek repayment from John L. Henry after the loan became due and did not do so.” The court found that, insofar as these claims were based on the allegation that Bitters told Henry not to repay the loan, “a reasonable jury [could] conclude that fraudulent concealment applies” and thus that the limitations period was tolled. The court correctly instructed the jury on the elements of fraudulent concealment under Nebraska law. See Andres v. McNeil Co., 707 N.W.2d 777, 787 (Neb. 2005) (stating the elements of fraudulent concealment). The court also found that, insofar as these claims were based on the allegation that Bitters represented that he would seek repayment from Henry but did not do so, they stemmed from conduct that continued until 2013 and thus fell within both the two-year and four-year limitations periods. See Anthony K. ex rel. Ashley K. v. Neb. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., -7- 855 N.W.2d 788, 800–01 (Neb. 2014) (explaining the continuing tort doctrine). These findings are supported by the record, and Bitters cannot show that he was prejudiced by the district court’s instructions to the jury. Second, Bitters argues that the district court erred by not deciding, as a matter of law, that the estate failed to prove any damages attributable to him. He describes the estate’s claims against him as alleging “fraud in the inducement” and argues that such a claim would only warrant damages that resulted from Petersen entering into the note and not damages from Henry’s subsequent non-payment. Further, he asserts that the estate’s “fraud-in-the-inducement” claim asked the jury to rescind the note and restore the parties to their original positions, whereas its breach-of-contract claim against Henry asked the jury to affirm the note and award damages for Henry’s breach. He contends that these theories of recovery are “inconsistent in the sense that [the estate] cannot logically choose one without renouncing the other,” and that the estate thus should have been required to make an election of remedies. See Genetti v. Caterpillar, Inc., 621 N.W.2d 529, 546 (Neb. 2001). We are not persuaded. Insofar as the estate’s claims against Bitters rested on a theory of fraud in the inducement, the district court dismissed them on statute-oflimitations grounds. The theories that were presented to the jury were that Bitters told Henry not to repay the loan and that Bitters told Petersen that he would seek repayment from Henry and failed to do so. These claims were consistent with the estate’s breach-of-contract claim against Henry in that each claim sought damages for the non-payment of the loan. It was permissible for the jury to consider these alternative theories of recovery so long as the district court allowed only “one satisfaction [to be] had” for this single, indivisible injury. See id. Third, Bitters argues that the estate was not the real party in interest because the money Petersen used to fund the loan came from her annuities, which were non-probate assets that would pass to her children rather than to her estate. The -8- district court rejected this argument because Bitters made it for the first time in the post-trial renewal of his Rule 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b). We agree that Bitters failed to timely raise this argument and decline to consider it for the same reason as the district court. See Nassar v. Jackson, 779 F.3d 547, 551 (8th Cir. 2015) (“A court reviewing a Rule 50(b) motion is limited to consideration of only those grounds advanced in the original, Rule 50(a) motion.”). Bitters also challenges the district court’s denial of his motion for a new trial. He argues that various rulings regarding the evidence, testimony, and arguments allowed at trial, and opposing counsel’s “repeated and contumacious misconduct,” deprived him of a fair trial. The district court carefully reviewed each of these arguments and decided that, although some of Bitters’s concerns were “well-founded, the trial was not unfair.” We give “great deference” to the district court’s judgment, and we are not convinced that the court abused its discretion in deciding that a new trial was not necessary to prevent a miscarriage of justice. See Belk, 228 F.3d at 878.