Opinion ID: 1724236
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: television set is set up in courtroom to play the video tape)

Text: ¶ 14. After the admissibility of plaintiff's intended expert testimony was decided, the plaintiff continued with Stewart as a lay witness, but without his Damage Assessment Report which contained the specifics of what was needed to restore Caracci's lake. Eventually, Caracci rested her case, causing the following to transpire, which is insightful into the trial judge's previous ruling. PLAINTIFF RESTS         BY MR. WILLIAMSON: We have motions, Your Honor. BY THE COURT: I am going to let this jury be retired, please. WHEREUPON, THE JURY WAS RETIRED FROM THE COURTROOM, AND THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HAD OUT OF THE PRESENCE OF THE JURY: BY THE COURT: All right. Make your motion. BY MR. WILLIAMSON: Your Honor, comes now the Defendant and moves the Court to exclude the evidence offered on behalf of the Plaintiff, and to direct a verdict, and dismiss the case of the Plaintiff. In support of that motion, Your Honor, we would point out what I think the Court probably has in its mind by simply making the motion. There is no liability proof, number one. Let's talk about that, if I may. Hall vs. Hood requires two things, basically, or two specifics. Number one, an unreasonable use of the property by an upstream or another landowner, and a failure to take reasonable, reasonable, measures, not unreasonable, not extraordinary, but reasonable measures to lessen, not totally eliminate, damage to the, in this case, downstream landowner. BY THE COURT: Let me hear from you on proof of damages. BY MR. WILLIAMSON: There has been none. Number one, Your Honor, there is absolutely  well, let's back up. The Plaintiff has heard before this Court  BY THE COURT: This is argument, Mrs. Gilmer. You don't have to take the argument. BY MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. BY THE COURT: You have made your motion for directed verdict for failure of proof of liability and damages. BY MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. BY THE COURT: All right. BY MR. WILLIAMSON: The only measure of damages that the Plaintiff can put on is restoration by his own motion in limine. He has achieved an order saying that was his measure of damages. That is a special damage, number one. Number two, there has been no proof of it. There was no allegation of special damages, no allegation of the restoration expenses in the complaint, no itemization of those expenses in the complaint, as we are required by Rule 9 of Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, and number three, there is absolutely no proof, not one dollar, regarding what damage, any kind of damage, that has been, if any, incurred by the Plaintiff. BY THE COURT: I must make a phone call at this time, but when I return, I will hear from you. (PAUSE IN PROCEEDINGS) BY THE COURT: All right. Mr. Caracci? BY MR. CARACCI: Your Honor, I think liability in this case is clear. The only question that has come up is the question of damages. Mr. Williamson has suggested that the cost of repair of an injury to property is a special damage and has to be specially pleaded. I would ask the Court to refer to Rule 9 and the comments thereto. They specifically contemplate injury to property, loss of the fair market value of the property. BY THE COURT: I want to hear from you on your proof of damages, that the jury has a guide, where you offered any proof of damages. BY MR. CARACCI: In a case of negligence, I think all you are required to do is ask the jury to give you reasonable compensation for the harm you see that has been suffered. That is all we can ask them to do. We can't give them any  because of the nature of what has happened in the case, we can't give them any quantities of dirt. We can't give them any estimates of how much it would cost to move that dirt, but they have seen the dirt. They know it's there. They had a feel for it. They can see the stream runs and how it was filled up, and they know what's in the stream. They can use their common experience, and say, Well, a reasonable amount to fix this property to cure the negligence which has occurred here, is X amount of dollars, and that is all we can do is ask them  now the jury instructions, standardized jury instructions, in a negligence case prepared by the Supreme Court, direct that you don't have to have certain proof of damages. All you need is something to  well, I will get it out and read it. Perhaps, that will be helpful for this argument. (PAUSE IN PROCEEDINGS) BY MR. CARACCI: Your Honor, I am referring to what has been filed as Plaintiff's Instruction No. 16. It is the standardized language. This paragraph that I will read you is the standardized language in the Supreme Court instruction. In order to recover damages, they must be shown with reasonable probability both as to their nature and as to their cause. A Plaintiff does not lose his right to recover damages because he is unable to prove with absolute certainty mathematical value of his injury. If the cause of the injury is reasonably probable, you may reasonably estimate the damages, and the assessment thereof is within the discretion of the jury. BY THE COURT: But, the jury must not resort to conjecture, surmise, or speculation. That's been the law from the time we have ever had law books. That the Plaintiff is not required to prove the exact dollar of damages, but there must be some guide given for the jury to base their judgment upon. You show a picture of an automobile which has been wrecked. The jury can see that there is damage to the automobile, but they must have some guide as to the repair of that automobile before the Plaintiff would be entitled to a judgment. If a witness testifies they have been to the doctor, the jury would know that, certainly, a doctor bill was incurred, but they would be called upon to speculate as to the amount of that bill without some doctor bill as a guide. That's what Mr. Williamson is arguing to you, and that is what I have asked for you to respond to. BY MR. CARACCI: Well  BY THE COURT: As far as liability is concerned, the Court is satisfied you have proved liability, to the point that the jury can pass upon it, to withstand a motion for directed verdict, but the motion that I am concerned with is the failure of your proof of damages. BY MR. CARACCI: The only numbers that have been introduced, Judge, is $45.00 an hour, and the length, the width, the depth, of the stream. From that, the jury can determine the basic volume and use their common sense and arrive at a number from there. There are numbers to give them a guide. BY THE COURT: Very well. I will rule then. Take this, Mrs. Gilmer. The motion has been made by Mr. Williamson for a directed verdict, to exclude the evidence, and direct a verdict in favor of the Defendant. This is a difficult motion for me to sustain. The Trial Judge in the trial of a case views the case, as well as the jury. I sat here all of yesterday listening to the testimony, and then I saw particularly the video of the damages as offered by the witness Stewart. In this Court's opinion, that video, especially so, established that there was damage to the property of Mrs. Caracci, so that would cause the Court then to overrule a motion for a directed verdict and permit the jury to make the decision as to whether that was, in fact, damage proximately caused by the unreasonable use of the property of International Paper, without there being proper precautions taken to reduce that damage. So, this Court was, very frankly, prepared to overrule that part of the motion, because I felt that you had proven that. Then I was called upon yesterday on whether or not you lawyers had practiced law, you and Mr. Williamson, in that you had not complied with the rules of civil procedure, rules that I disagree with, but I am still constrained to follow those rules. One is regarding answering of interrogatories concerning the testimony of expert witnesses. Our law is that you discover the testimony of an expert witness through interrogatories, and whenever an answer is made to that, it is then incumbent upon the opposite party to come back before the Court. Look, I am not satisfied with the answer. Give me an order directing that he fully answer these, and then you could have full discovery. I could relax the rule and permit the Plaintiff to take a deposition of the expert. But, now, of course, that was not done. But, the rules further require that the testimony of the expert be sworn to by the party answering the interrogatories. Well, in this case, you answered the interrogatory, but you did not comply with the law that requires full disclosure of the testimony and the opinions and the substance of the testimony. Apparently, you might have recognized that, but then you filed an unsworn supplemental answer. It was never filed. There is nothing in the file that reflects that. Mr. Williamson denies that you furnished him a copy. There is no certificate on your pleadings that you did serve him a copy of it. I sustained his objection. Then this morning, you brought to my attention that Mr. Williamson was guilty of the same thing, that he had not sworn to his answers, and I sustained your objection, saying that his experts would not be able to give testimony. Now, without that testimony, you could have still proven your damages. You could have called some bulldozer operator. He would only have to give a guide. He says, I have a certain size bulldozer, and I charge X number of dollars per hour. I have viewed Mrs. Caracci's property. In my opinion, it will take ten hours at a hundred dollars an hour. The jury has some guide then. They have to consider with the proof that you have offered in the way of testimony, pictures, and video; but, the jury only has now your pictures, your testimony, and the video. Of course, as a former trial lawyer and as a Trial Judge, I attempted to help you in my rulings, and I don't mean to hurt your feelings. I don't want to do that at all, and I tried to rule in such a way that if you were listening to my rulings, I was telling you how to do it; but, you were offering matters in evidence, attempts to do things, that to me it appeared you had not had a lot of trial experience. Meaning foresight on a case such as this, as I did when I was your age and a beginning lawyer, I associated older lawyers to help me until I learned what it was all about. Now, as a Trial Judge sitting here ruling on matters such as this, I know that my ruling affects your mother. If I was on the jury, I probably would award some damages. So, I am going to sustain the motion. I don't think I have any alternative but to sustain it. I don't see any way I can help you. This is not a Court of equity. This is a Court of law. There's nothing I can do for you, but to follow the law. Therefore, it is followed. The motion is sustained. The complaint is dismissed. Bring in the jury, please. Incidentally, for the record, I disagreed with that part of the motion regarding Rule 9 in the argument as it was made, but not in its entirety. WHEREUPON, THE JURY WAS RETURNED TO THE JURY BOX, AND THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HAD IN THE PRESENCE OF THE JURY: BY THE COURT: In the trial of a case, civil suit or criminal case, it is always the practice of the attorneys at the conclusion of the evidence of a party, to make a motion for directed verdict. If you will recall, I told you that in the trial of a civil case, that the person who brings that cause of action has the burden of proving his cause of action by a preponderance of the evidence. Well, at the conclusion of the evidence, the person being sued will make a motion for a directed verdict. Now, what that directed verdict is, it calls upon the Court to rule on the legal sufficiency of that evidence as to whether or not a prima facie case has been made out, whether or not at this point in time, a case has been made out that if you would retire to pass upon that evidence at that point in time, you would return a verdict for the Plaintiff. If not, you would return a verdict for the Defendant. In this case, I ruled on legal matters that affected, apparently, the proof of certain witnesses, not of proof of that particular element, but only of the testimony that could be testified to by certain witnesses. Such as the expert testimony, because of the failure to comply with the rules of procedure. In doing so, the Plaintiff has rested. The Defendant has made its motion for directed verdict for failure to give you a guide of proof of the cost of restoring the pond before the damage. This Court ruled that in my opinion, the Plaintiff had made out a case of liability, or responsibility. That is another word for it. To let you then pass upon whether or not you believe there was sufficient evidence of responsibility; but, I sustained that part of the motion that deal with the failure of proof of damages. If I show you a photograph of my car that has been involved in an accident, you can look at it, and you would know that that car was damaged. The photograph would clearly show there was obvious damage to my car; but, I must go farther. I can't say, I as an owner of that car, it is going to cost $586.00 to fix my car. I have got to bring someone who knows, and he is going to sit down and testify it is going to cost $586.00 to fix Judge Gordon's car. If I go to the doctor, and I say I have been to a doctor, well, you know that there's a charge for it, but the bill of the charge is evidence of how much it is. A person doesn't have to prove his damages to the exact cents, but it must be some proof so that you would not be called upon to speculate, surmise, or conjecture as to the amount of damages. You saw photographs of the sand, filled creeks, and all, the plunger as it was plunged into the ground; but, there must be some evidence of how much it's going to cost to restore that pond to its condition. Well, an expert can give a kind of guide by determining the amount of sand that is within that pond. Some expert who has knowledge can possibly establish that it will cost X number of dollars to hire a bulldozer at a hundred dollars an hour, and it would take him two weeks to do it, and give you some guide. So, then you can determine how much it is going to cost by the exercise of what you know about life, too, you see. Or, some person who builds ponds can go out there and look and see and say, Well, it will take me two weeks at a hundred dollars an hour. You would have some guide. That was not offered to you. So, this Court has no discretion. This is not a Court of equity. A Court of equity can adjust things. I'm a Court of law. Meaning you either prove it, or you don't prove it. I have given a directed verdict, and this case ends at this time. ¶ 15. It is from the above reproduced decision of the trial court that Caracci has based this appeal. Based on the above excerpted testimony, it appears to this Court that the trial judge resorted to the option of last resort for a discovery violation, namely excluding testimony and evidence, although the defendant does not appear to have been ambushed at trial. IP's counsel admits at one point of having received a several page report from Caracci, but then turns around and says that he never received any thing at all in the form of an expert report. Furthermore, IP's counsel stated that even if he had received it, which he was unsure about, that Caracci's supplemental response in the form of a damage report was not under oath and therefore, should have been excluded nevertheless. Knowing that an interrogatory response is not under oath and waiting until trial to bring this violation to a court's attention is trial by surprise. A result and method of practice that was buried with the 1982 adoption of our rules of civil procedure. Harris v. General Host Corp., 503 So.2d 795, 796 (Miss. 1987) (We have long been committed to the proposition that trial by ambush should be abolished....) DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUES I. DID THE TRIAL COURT ERR AS A MATTER OF LAW BY EXCLUDING THE TESTIMONY OF PLAINTIFF'S EXPERT ENGINEERS ON THE GROUNDS THAT PLAINTIFF'S EXPERT INTERROGATORY RESPONSE WAS NOT FILED AND NOT UNDER OATH WHERE DEFENDANT'S FILED NO PRE-TRIAL MOTION TO COMPEL A CORRECTIVE RESPONSE OR OTHERWISE IDENTIFY THE ALLEGED OMISSION AS AN ISSUE OF ANY SIGNIFICANCE AND WHERE DEFENDANTS ADMIT THAT NINE MONTHS BEFORE TRIAL THEY RECEIVED FULL DISCLOSURE OF THE ENGINEER'S CERTIFIED DAMAGE ASSESSMENT REPORT IN A LETTER SUPPLEMENTING PLAINTIFF'S INITIAL SWORN INTERROGATORY RESPONSE? II. DID THE TRIAL COURT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION BY EXCLUDING THE TESTIMONY OF PLAINTIFF'S EXPERT ENGINEERS AND EXCLUDING FROM EVIDENCE THEIR CERTIFIED DAMAGE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON THE GROUNDS THAT SAID REPORT WAS INCORRECTLY TRANSMITTED TO DEFENDANTS NINE MONTHS BEFORE TRIAL BY A LETTER WHICH REFERENCED PLAINTIFF'S INITIAL SWORN INTERROGATORY RESPONSE INSTEAD OF A SEPARATELY SWORN SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSE? III. DID THE TRIAL COURT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION BY EXCLUDING LAY TESTIMONY ABOUT THE VOLUME OF MATERIAL WHICH MIGRATED FROM DEFENDANT'S PROPERTY ONTO PLAINTIFF'S PROPERTY ON THE GROUND THAT SUCH MATTERS REQUIRED EXPERT TESTIMONY WHERE THE WITNESS DEMONSTRATED PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE BASED ON VIDEO TAPE MEASUREMENTS OF THE LENGTH, WIDTH, AND DEPTH OF THE DEPOSITS IN QUESTION? ¶ 16. In Barnes v. Confidential Party, 628 So.2d 283, 291(Miss. 1993), this Court stated that: ... our standard of review of sanctions for discovery violations generally was stated in Cooper v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 568 So.2d 687, 693 (Miss. 1990): Our standard for review is whether the trial court abused its discretion in its decision. This Court must decide whether the ... court could have entered the order which it did. Under this standard, this Court will affirm unless there is a definite and firm conviction that the court below committed a clear error of judgment in the conclusion it reached upon weighing of relevant factors. Cooper v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 568 So.2d at 693 (cites omitted). See also Kilpatrick v. Mississippi Baptist Medical, 461 So.2d 765, 767 (Miss. 1984); Clark v. Mississippi Power Co., 372 So.2d 1077 (Miss. 1979). ¶ 17. Lower courts should be cautious in either dismissing a suit or pleadings or refusing to permit testimony... . The reason for this is obvious. Courts are courts of justice not of form. The parties should not be penalized for any procedural failure that may be handled without doing violence to court procedures. Clark v. Mississippi Power Co., 372 So.2d 1077, 1078 (Miss. 1979); see also Ladner v. Ladner, 436 So.2d 1366, 1370 (Miss. 1983). ¶ 18. Caracci contends that Denman v. Hardy, 437 So.2d 426, 429 (Miss. 1983), wherein this Court construed Miss. Code Ann. § 13-1-237, discovery prior to the adoption of our rules of civil procedure, is our seminal case and controls the case sub judice. The principle offered from Denman is that where a party's response to an interrogatory is considered incomplete or evasive, it is incumbent upon the party alleging the inadequateness to make a motion for a court order compelling further discovery information to be disclosed before sanctions may be imposed. Id. However, the former statutory distinction between totally failing to respond or responses of absolutely no substance versus incomplete or evasive answers to discovery requests with regard to the remedy for such has been dissolved by M.R.C.P. 37(a)(3), which considers evasive or incomplete answers to be treated as a total failure to answer. ¶ 19. Under our rules of civil procedure, failure to make or cooperate in discovery should first be resolved by making a motion in the proper court requesting an order compelling such discovery. See M.R.C.P. 37(a)(2). The remedy for failing to comply with the discovery requests when the trial court grants an order to compel falls under M.R.C.P. 37(a)(4) in the form of awarding the moving party the expenses for such motion. See M.R.C.P. 37; January v. Barnes, 621 So.2d 915, 922 (Miss. 1992). After such an order to compel has been granted under M.R.C.P. 37(a)(2), and the party ordered to answer fails to respond, then the remedy may be sanctions in accordance with M.R.C.P. 37(b). See 8 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil § 2050 (1970). ¶ 20. The Comment to M.R.C.P. 37 states that M.R.C.P. 37(e) was added so that a trial court would have more flexibility in summarily dealing with discovery violations. The example provided by the Comment, which is qualified as just being an example and not intended to be the exclusive remedy, speaks of imposing monetary sanctions at the conclusion of the case where a party has failed to make proper discovery. It would appear that failure to have an interrogatory signed under oath would fall into the category of improper discovery and thus be subject to a monetary fine, but not complete exclusion of testimony by persons present at trial. ¶ 21. Caracci contends that the sanction imposed by excluding evidence was an abuse of discretion by the trial court in light of State Highway Commission of Mississippi v. Havard, 508 So.2d 1099, 1104 (Miss. 1987). Where the answer may at worst be held `evasive,' the discovering party must seek and obtain an order compelling a more detailed response as a precondition of obtaining Rule 37(b) sanctions  one of which is preclusive of use of non-disclosed evidence. Id.; Denman v. Hardy, 437 So.2d 426, 429 (Miss. 1983). Thus, Caracci maintains that because she did provide a fairly detailed explanation under oath, and because she sent the supplemental damage report to IP, although not under oath, that IP should have been required to get an order to compel prior to the imposition of Rule 37(b) sanctions pursuant to the language of Rule 37, Denman and Havard. ¶ 22. From the record before this Court, it appears that IP had long been aware of Caracci's deficiencies in answers to discovery. IP failed to bring the deficiencies to the lower court's attention, but chose to wait until trial to object to the discovery violations and then asked the court to deny the expert testimony. This Court finds that IP was required to ask the circuit court to compel Caracci to comply with discovery requests. ¶ 23. Although not on point, this Court has previously considered excluding evidence as discovery sanctions. In Herrington v. Herrington, 660 So.2d 215 (Miss. 1994), a woman seeking unpaid support from her husband would not produce unaltered financial records during discovery. The husband made a motion to compel discovery, the chancellor granted the compel order, but yet the woman continued to refuse to produce unaltered bank statements. We held that under these circumstances that the evidentiary exclusion sanction was appropriate despite the fact that the order to compel was oral and not written. Herrington, 660 So.2d at 218. The case sub judice and Herrington do not appear analogous as Herrington involved a blatant and outright refusal by a party to comply with discovery even after being ordered to compel, and the case sub judice does not even involve the first stage of compulsion to comply and the admitted single defect being that the responses were not under oath. ¶ 24. In Harris v. General Host Corporation, 503 So.2d 795, 798 (Miss. 1987), this Court held that when the identity of an expert witness, and his identity alone without an explanation of his anticipated testimony, was not disclosed until six days prior to trial, it was a sanctionable discovery violation. In the case sub judice, IP admits that it received Caracci's initial response to discovery, in which the expert's identity and cursory explanation of his intended testimony under oath was given. As explained above, IP was under the duty to ask the circuit court to compel Caracci to fully answer discovery. ¶ 25. IP contends that M.R.C.P. 5 requires that any papers involving the expert, i.e., expert interrogatories, must be filed with the court when an expert is anticipated to be used at trial. However, IP offers no authority on this contention. ¶ 26. IP states that Caracci failed to comply with M.R.C.P. 9 because she did not plead her special damages with particularity, however, that statement represents IP's full argument on Rule 9. The trial judge did not specifically rule on this motion, because it had held that the expert testimony was inadmissible for not having been made under oath. IP did not brief or offer any authority for this argument, therefore this Court will not consider the Rule 9 issue. ¶ 27. IP also contends that because Caracci never made any offer of proof as to what the excluded experts would have testified to that the trial court can not be held in error as such information never became a part of the record by proffer. Wirtz v. Switzer, 586 So.2d 775, 784 (Miss. 1991). However, Caracci answers this issue in his reply brief by contending that he made an offer of proof by insisting that Southern Consultants' Damage Assessment Report, which contained all of Stewart's testimony that he would have given, be made a part of the record. The damage report was marked for identification at trial and is contained in the record on appeal. ¶ 28. Furthermore, IP contends that Caracci never made a motion for a mistrial or a continuance so that she could file the proper expert responses in adequate time for the defendants to prepare for cross-examination. Caracci contends that there was no need to make such a motion because the trial court had ruled that she was prohibited from offering any expert testimony because her expert interrogatory responses were not under oath. ¶ 29. Finally, IP contends that the exclusion of Stewart's testimony regarding his lay person calculations as to the volume of sediment in the lake was proper because there still would not have been any proof of the cost of restoration and because there was no proffer. Caracci stands by her argument about her alleged failure to proffer in the paragraph above. ¶ 30. The record reflects that Caracci gave IP a sworn response naming her anticipated expert and a general basis for his conclusions and opinions intended to be given at trial. Next, IP admits that it got some sort of several page report, which Caracci contends was the Damage Assessment Report, while simultaneously telling the court that it never received a formal response under oath of Caracci's expert. Then, the trial judge ruled that because the supplemental response that was given was not under oath, the most severe of all discovery penalties was the appropriate remedy. This does not conform with this Court's previous rulings on the appropriateness of particular sanctions given varying forms of discovery violations. This Court does not imply or hold that unsworn interrogatory responses are acceptable. Rather, this Court finds the penalty or sanction for providing an unsworn supplementation to a prior sworn response should not be the complete exclusion of that evidence. Instead, the sanction should possibly be monetary, but not the destruction of a key piece of evidence when an apparent good faith effort was made to disclose the evidence.