Opinion ID: 6983255
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff’s motion to strike portions of the ABPS’s brief.

Text: Plaintiff complains that, when arguing that the district judge correctly granted the ABPS’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, the ABPS cites in its brief affidavits that were not before the jury. In considering whether sufficient evidence was presented to a jury to support a verdict, a court may not consider evidence not before the jury. See United States v. Bonds, 12 F.3d 540, 552 (6th Cir.1993) (“A party may not by-pass the fact-finding process of the lower court and introduce new facts in its brief on appeal.”) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The ABPS quotes from the affidavit of a Dr. Coles, and cites to three other affidavits, although those materials were not presented to the jury in any manner. The ABPS relies upon the affidavits in an impermissible manner. Two of the primary issues on this appeal are whether plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that health care professionals, such as Dr. Coles, were actually deceived by the alleged misrepresentations of the ABPS, and whether such deception of health care professionals caused injury to plaintiff. These affidavits are cited to persuade this court that there was no such deception and that the challenged statements did not adversely affect plaintiff. The ABPS attempts to justify its reference to these materials by arguing that they were submitted in support of its motion for attorney’s fees. The portion of the brief in which the affidavits are cited is clearly directed at proving the insufficiency of the evidence presented to the jury, not the frivolousness of plaintiff’s case. Because they were not considered by the jury, we have ignored the references to them in this appeal.