Opinion ID: 551863
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: All Line's Profit Margin for Pre-Termination Damages

Text: 22 The trial judge's decisions to receive evidence on the issue of All Line's profit margin and to apply a 20 percent profit margin to Rabar's pre-termination sales to Little Tikes were an appropriate exercise of discretion. Rabar's objection on appeal states the equitable principle that factual statements in a pretrial order signed by a party's counsel are judicial admissions which are conclusively binding on the party. That principle is inapplicable here, however, because All Line's claim in the pretrial order that its profit margin was 14.75 percent was followed by a statement that All Line had not yet been able to ascertain the exact extent of its damages.... This qualification prevents the stated profit margin of 14.75 percent, which was based upon 1987 sales, from limiting All Line to that margin. All Line's actual profit margin depended upon the types of rope Rabar sold directly to Little Tikes (the profit margin varied for different types of rope), and complete information regarding those sales was not available to All Line until trial. The trial court properly overruled Rabar's objection to the admissibility of evidence establishing All Line's profit margin on Rabar's pre-termination sales to Little Tikes because All Line did not limit itself to a 14.75 percent profit margin in the pretrial order.