Opinion ID: 2588021
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Supplementation of interrogatory responses and subsequent motion in limine

Text: On April 21, 2006, the day after the District had filed its motion for partial summary judgment and 1 month before the scheduled retrial, defendants had filed supplemental answers to the District's interrogatories. The original answers had been supplied 19 months earlier in September 2004. Defendants now detailed their alleged damages in response to Interrogatory No. 3. They reiterated original categories of damages from Duggan's 2004 deposition, e.g., replatting costs. But, perhaps concerned about the District's objection to their allegedly added damages at the mistrial 2 months earlier, they also now presented those particular damages first specifically mentioned there: spreadout costs of sewer and water lines and asphalt for Clare Road of $102,000 and spreadout costs of constructing a main arterial road of $278,000. They also increased a particular damage amount specifically mentioned for the first time at mistrial: the cost to construct a road (Clear Creek Parkway) from K-7 to the subdivision now jumped from $169,000 to $1,455,960. Finally, they now assigned amounts to categories of damages first claimed, but unvalued, at the mistrial: interest of $621,000 and taxes of $20,000. The District quickly responded with another motion in limine. Consistent with its understanding of the court's order the Friday before the mistrial and with its objection (raised but not ruled upon) at the mistrial, it asked that certain damages evidence be excluded. Specifically, it wanted defendants to be prohibited from mentioning, offering, or introducing evidence concerning specific items of damage that neither John Duggan nor any of Defendants' experts identified or quantified in reports or depositions. Concurrent with its motion in limine was a related motion to strike defendants' supplemental responses to the interrogatories setting forth these new damages. The District acknowledged that Duggan had identified and quantified certain alleged damages in his deposition, i.e., the four specific categories and the values asserted for each. It argued, however, that while other damages may have been vaguely mentioned, they were not specifically discussed or quantified during Duggan's deposition or in defendants' initial responses to interrogatories. For example, the District recognized that offsite sewer costs had been mentioned in the initial interrogatory responses. It claimed, however, that it had been led to believe that this factor was included in the $155,000now $114,000for amenities cost distribution identified in Duggan's deposition (which included sewer extensions to the community). Accordingly, sewer costs could not be in the separate category now asserted for an additional $102,000. Overall, the District sought to exclude evidence regarding defendants' lost profits caused by an inability to spread out the cost of sewer work, street improvements, a road to the development, water, asphalt, taxes, and interest. The District contended that if these damages were allowed, the case would have to be delayed even further because significant additional discovery would be required, including the District's retention of additional expert witnesses, particularly on the engineering issues. Defendants replied that they had simply supplemented their answers to the District's interrogatories and that they could not be faulted for the District's failure to ask pointed questions during Duggan's deposition. Additionally, they argued that all such evidence went to the fair market value of the land and therefore should be presented to the jury. Defendants claimed that the appropriate solution was for the District to vigorously cross-examine their expert witnesses. During the same May 22 hearing that the court granted the District's motion for partial summary judgment for lack of evidence connecting lost profits to fair market value, it also fully granted the District's latest motion in limine. It found that these alleged damages either were not timely, or adequately, disclosedor both. Accordingly, the court not only prohibited damages for categories that had not been previously identified, but also prohibited damages that had not been quantified for the previously mentioned categories. The court held it would be unfair to the District to allow defendants to make these particular claims at this late date: Now, the itemization of a million and a half dollars for the Clear Creek [Parkway] extension appears to me to be an item of damage that was not previously disclosed by neither Mr. Duggan nor any of the experts identified pursuant to the scheduling order in this case. Now, to [also] allow the defendants at this late date to quantify items of damages for the first time seems inherently unfair to me, and I'm especially concerned if what we are talking about is an [engineering] expert's opinion as to the probable costs of doing this [ e.g., Parkway extension] work. The fact that the author of that opinion [engineer] is someone who is undoubtedly a specialist in the field would likely carry significant weight with a jury, and I think it would be unfair to permit the defendant at this hour, literally at the eleventh hour, to come in and go down the road of an undisclosed expert's opinion, and so I'm going to sustain the motion in limine as to the engineer's report. Now, in similar fashion, I think what Mr. Duggan was asked [during his deposition], the question is: Are there any other items of damage? He had an obligation to answer that question candidly and truthfully. Now, he said, as I understand it, his answer was, `No. None that I can think of at this time.' Well, it seems to the Court that you just don't have an oversight as to a $1.5 million item of damages [cost to construct Clear Creek Parkway] in a case like this, and so to the extent the defendant limited itself to show items of damages spelled out in Mr. Duggan's deposition, then defendant should be bound by those items of damages. .... [T]o the extent that there's new material that's been generated since the first trial of this matter, I don't think that it's fundamentally fair to permit the defendants to introduce such at this late date. There has to be a conclusion of trial preparation at some point. Similar to the court's damage-limiting ruling the Friday before the mistrial 3 months earlier, the court now ordered that the defendants are prohibited from mentioning, offering, or introducing evidence concerning specific items of damage neither Mr. Duggan nor any of defendants' other experts have identified in their reports or depositions. Consequently, the court also granted the District's related motion to strike defendants' interrogatory supplementation. At the second trial, the District argued that defendants were entitled to no more than $710,000 as just compensation. It relied upon the testimony of Bernie Shaner, a licensed real estate appraiser. Limited by the trial court's previous rulings on damages, defendants' witnesses detailed their losses as follows: the cost of the property actually taken ($409,386); lost profits on the property actually taken ($643,521) (without consideration of home sales profits); school proximity damages to the remainder ($315,000); and expenses to redesign the subdivision ($30,000). The jury found that the fair market value of the property was $718,100. Additional facts will be added as necessary to the analysis.