Opinion ID: 2614599
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the trial court abuse its discretion by excluding testimony relating to inspections of the swimming area?

Text: According to the State, Doug Sonerholm was a state-employed ranger who had the primary day-to-day responsibility for the maintenance and operation of the Big Lake North Recreation Site at the time of McCubbins's accident. Sonerholm resigned in June 1993 and began working for the Wasilla Police Department. The State's July 19, 1994 witness list included Sonerholm as a potential fact witness. The State also notes that it identified Sonerholm in a response to an interrogatory. [8] However, the State had difficulty contacting Sonerholm and did not speak with him until midway through the trial. The State notified McCubbins of the substance of this contact on January 25, 1995, two days after the beginning of trial, through a supplemental interrogatory response. On January 30, 1995, McCubbins moved to exclude any testimony regarding inspection of the subsurface or bottom of the Big Lake North Swimming Area, because the State had failed to disclose this information in response to very specific interrogatories. After hearing oral argument, the trial court concluded that the State's supplemental disclosure was untimely, although it noted that the State had not engaged in intentional misrepresentation. The trial court concluded that McCubbins would be prejudiced by the late disclosure, because at this point in the trial, McCubbins had just completed his entire liability case-in-chief. The trial court allowed the State to introduce Sonerholm's testimony that he had conducted inspections on shore and in a boat to discover litter and hazards such as broken glass, because it was consistent with the State's answers to McCubbins's interrogatories. Thus, the court only precluded Sonerholm from testifying that he inspected the lake for hazardous objects in hip waders. The State asserts that it repeatedly attempted to contact Sonerholm in good faith and did not willfully violate the discovery process. Relying on Wasserman v. Bartholomew, 923 P.2d 806, 811-12 (Alaska 1996), it argues that any sanction was improper. McCubbins responds that allowing Sonerholm to testify that he inspected the lake in hip waders would have severely prejudiced his case because the State failed to disclose any evidence of such inspections until after McCubbins had completed his liability presentation to the jury. [9] The trial court did not abuse its discretion in limiting Sonerholm's testimony. The State's reliance on Wasserman is not persuasive. In Wasserman, we held that the trial court improperly excluded the testimony of a non-party witness as a sanction because, under the circumstances, the witness's uncooperative behavior was not properly attributable to the sanctioned defendant. Wasserman, 923 P.2d at 812-13. However, Wasserman also held that [t]rial courts have the power to regulate the manner in which evidence is discovered and disclosed at trial. In extreme circumstances, a trial court may properly conclude that only exclusion of a non-party witness's testimony can redress the unfairness of the situation. Id. at 812. Also, in State v. Guinn, 555 P.2d 530 (Alaska 1976), we upheld the trial court's exclusion of a State Trooper's testimony because the State, the defendant on whose behalf the Trooper was going to testify, failed to produce the Trooper's notebook on which his testimony was to be based. Id. at 542-43. The trial court's exclusion of the Trooper's testimony was upheld even though the State's failure to produce the notebook was not in bad faith or a purposeful deception. Id. at 543. Indeed, we explicitly rejected the State's argument that the trial court abused its discretion because there was no showing of wilful recalcitrance on the part of the State. Id. Thus, the fact that the State in the present case allegedly made good faith efforts to locate Sonerholm is not necessarily dispositive of the issue of whether the court abused its discretion in limiting his testimony. Accord Fairbanks N. Star Borough v. Lakeview Enterprises, Inc., 897 P.2d 47, 58 (Alaska 1995) (citing Guinn for the proposition that a showing of `wilful' disobedience was not required in order to preclude a witness' testimony.). Finally, the trial court's sanction was narrowly crafted in that it merely excluded testimony inconsistent with the State's interrogatory responses. The trial court considered other lesser sanctions, concluding that an award of costs would not remedy the disadvantage to McCubbins if the State were allowed to introduce the testimony. Further, the sanction was carefully limited to the nature of the State's violation. The trial court only excluded testimony inconsistent with the State's interrogatory responses. It permitted the State to argue and elicit testimony that inspections for litter and hazards were routinely conducted from the shore and that litter was removed by canoe. Sonerholm did in fact testify at trial, and in closing argument the State emphasized that Sonerholm paid special attention to his routine inspections of the swimming area for stuff in the water. Such narrowly tailored, less drastic measures have been previously upheld by this court. See, e.g., Lakeview Enterprises, Inc., 897 P.2d at 58; Guinn, 555 P.2d at 543. Our holding that the superior court did not abuse its discretion in limiting the scope of Sonerholm's testimony is also supported by other authority. See, e.g., Yukon Equip., Inc. v. Gordon, 660 P.2d 428, 432 (Alaska 1983) (upholding exclusion of specific testimony for failure to disclose in response to interrogatory); cf. Grimes v. Haslett, 641 P.2d 813, 822-23 (Alaska 1982) (holding that trial court has considerable discretion in excluding or limiting testimony); Drickersen v. Drickersen, 604 P.2d 1082, 1087 (Alaska 1979) (upholding trial court's exclusion of expert's new opinions offered for first time at trial).