Opinion ID: 200835
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Order of Witnesses

Text: 25 Decisions regarding the mode and order of witness questioning lie within the district court's broad discretion, see Fed. R.Evid. 611(a); Elgabri v. Lekas, 964 F.2d 1255, 1260 (1st Cir.1992), but such decisions that result in undue prejudice to the appellant's case merit reversal. Loinaz v. EG & G, Inc., 910 F.2d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 1990). 26 Over Amtrak's objection, the district court allowed CPI to call Coyle, Amtrak's retained expert appraiser, during CPI's case-in-chief, and to examine him as a hostile witness. Amtrak argues that this ruling constituted an abuse of discretion in that it permitted CPI to evade its burden of proof with respect to the fair market value of the taking of the Air Rights, and hence materially prejudiced Amtrak in the presentation of its case. 27 Amtrak relies on Suarez Matos v. Ashford Presbyterian Cmty. Hosp., 4 F.3d 47 (1st Cir.1993), in arguing that the district court should not have allowed CPI to call Coyle during its case-in-chief. Suarez, however, deals with the propriety of asking leading questions and cannot be read to bar a party from calling an adversary's expert witness and treating him as hostile once the witness is affirmatively viewable as hostile. Id. at 50. CPI did not begin its examination of Coyle by asking leading questions, but instead started with a routine direct examination of Coyle. Not until it appeared that Coyle was affirmatively viewable as hostile did CPI begin asking leading questions. Indeed, Amtrak did not raise objections to CPI's questioning of Coyle until CPI started asking leading questions midway through the examination. Moreover, CPI listed Coyle as a witness in its pretrial memorandum. We find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing CPI to call Coyle during its case-in-chief. 28 Accordingly, we affirm. Costs are awarded to Capital Properties, Inc.