Opinion ID: 751696
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The cross-appeal by AFG and Herman

Text: 25 The cross-appeal challenges the magistrate judge's related rulings which (1) excluded, on Rothenberg's in limine motion, certain trial exhibits listed by plaintiffs, with Rothenberg's objections noted, in the pre-trial order, and (2) later denied the plaintiffs' post-judgment letter-request for leave to amend their complaint to add claims to which the excluded exhibits related. We review both rulings for abuse of discretion, and find no abuse as to either. 26 As developed in an extensive hearing on the motion in limine, AFG and Herman intended to introduce the exhibits to prove that in various transactions and by various means, Rothenberg had wrongfully taken from AFG during his employment by that company sums totaling over $800,000. We agree with the magistrate judge's assessment, orally given at the hearing's conclusion, that because the transactions and occurrences to which the excluded exhibits related were not relevant to the claims in the case as pleaded and confirmed in the recently entered pre-trial order, to allow their introduction would amount to the addition into the case of new claims after discovery had been closed and just two weeks before trial, and that this would unfairly prejudice Rothenberg under the circumstances. As the magistrate judge properly noted, AFG and Herman had foregone the opportunity available from the outset of the case to seek addition of the new claims by formal amendment to their complaint. In consequence, neither they nor Rothenberg had sought any discovery respecting the transactions and occurrences to which the exhibits related and, as the magistrate judge properly observed, discovery respecting them would be critical to their fair resolution. The magistrate judge also considered and properly rejected the contention by AFG and Herman that Rothenberg should be deemed to have consented to litigation of any claims to which the exhibits related by virtue of his counsel's participation without objection in settlement and other judicially supervised conferences in which it was manifest that AFG and Herman considered such claims to be properly in the case. 5 27 We therefore agree with the magistrate judge's ultimate conclusion that, under the circumstances, to allow claims based upon these exhibits to be introduced into the case at that juncture would not be in the interests of justice. Surely, to so rule was not an abuse of the magistrate judge's carefully informed discretion. 28 For the same reasons, we cannot find abuse of discretion in the magistrate judge's denial of the post-trial motion by AFG and Herman for leave to amend their complaint to add new claims based upon the transactions to which the exhibits related. Aside from grave doubts about the validity of the suggestion advanced with the motion that the added claims could then be severed and preserved against time-bar defenses, we could not find it an abuse of discretion to rule that the post-trial motion for amendment came much too late even under the liberal standards enjoined by Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a).