Opinion ID: 202321
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unfairly surprising testimony

Text: 34 In arguing for a new trial on the basis of unfairly surprising testimony, we take it that the plaintiff is arguing that a new trial is necessary to avoid a clear miscarriage of justice. This claim, in turn, rests on the contention that the defendants violated a discovery rule of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure when they ambushed her with the testimony about Officer Sein. We find this argument more persuasive. 35 Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e), a party must supplement its answers to interrogatories if the party learns that the response is in some material respect incomplete or incorrect and the other party is unaware of the new or corrective information.... This supplementation requirement increases the quality and fairness of the trial by narrowing the issues and eliminating surprise. Licciardi v. TIG Ins. Group, 140 F.3d 357, 363 (1st Cir.1998) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 5 The plaintiff argues that she was ambushed at trial because the defendants failed to supplement their answers to the interrogatories with information about Officer Sein's role in the investigation, even after it was clear that the plaintiff's theory of the case was based on Officer Ortiz's investigation. 36 The record supports the plaintiff's argument. In her written interrogatories, the plaintiff asked the defendants to [i]dentify each and any person(s) that has(have) or that you believe may have any knowledge of the facts relevant to the complaint, to the answer thereto and/or to any affirmative defenses. For each such person state the known and/or suspected scope of said knowledge. In response, the defendants listed Plaintiff, Sears, Javier A. Rivera, Luis Matos Colón, Luis Sierra, and presumably the policemen and medical technicians whose [sic] arrived at the scene. The defendants did not state the scope of each witnesses' knowledge, although they did briefly describe, in response to other interrogatories, the scope of the testimony to be provided by Rivera, Matos, and Sierra, and attached a statement by Matos describing his version of the accident. None of these materials mentioned the defendants' contention that Officer Ortiz never interviewed these witnesses. 37 In their brief, the defendants justify this omission by stating that when Sears answered the interrogatories, it did not know at that point that there was a controversy as to who interviewed Mr. Matos and Mr. Sierra. However, even if the defendants' omission in their initial response to the interrogatories is justifiable, they provide no explanation for why they failed to supplement their interrogatories after they became aware that this issue was in controversy—either after they deposed Officer Ortiz, or after the parties submitted their joint Proposed Pre-Trial Order to the district court. 38 Upon deposing Officer Ortiz, the defendants learned that he planned to testify that he interviewed Matos and that Matos never mentioned Sierra as a witness. Furthermore, the plaintiff's statement of the Nature of the Case in the joint Proposed Pre-Trial Order clearly indicated to the defendants that Officer Ortiz's testimony played a key role in the plaintiff's theory of the case: 39 Agent Ortiz investigated the facts surrounding the accident, while his fellow officer took care of directing the traffic and dealing with the on-lookers.... Agent Ortiz interviewed Mr. Luis Matos Colón, who told him that the reason for the accident was that he had not been paying attention. Agent Ortiz will also testify that Mr. Luis Matos, the driver of the Sears van[,] never informed him about the existence of any eye witnesses to the accident. 40 Yet, in their version of the Nature of the Case in the joint Proposed Pre-Trial Order, the defendants omitted any reference to the contrary testimony that their witnesses were going to provide regarding Officer Sein's role in the investigation. Moreover, in their list of contested facts in the joint Proposed Pre-Trial Order, the defendants did not note that they contested the identity of the investigating officer. Instead, the only contested fact regarding Officer Ortiz that they noted was [w]hether Agent Jose Ortiz Lopez adequately investigated the accident. This statement is misleading, written in a way that presupposes that Officer Ortiz conducted the investigation. 41 After deposing Officer Ortiz and receiving the plaintiff's portion of the joint Proposed Pre-trial Order, the defendants had to be aware that their prior response to the interrogatories was in some material respect incomplete or incorrect. Fed. R.Civ.P. 26(e)(2). On the basis of the defendants' response to the interrogatories and their statement of contested facts, the plaintiff had no reason to expect that the defendants would question the identity of the police officer who conducted the accident investigation. Yet the defendants did not supplement their interrogatories. This was a clear violation of Rule 26(e). See Licciardi, 140 F.3d at 364 (finding a Rule 26(e) violation where, due to defendant's failure to supplement his interrogatories, plaintiff was prejudiced by presenting a case addressed to one key issue, only to have defendant put on a case addressed to a different predicate key issue); see also Macaulay v. Anas, 321 F.3d 45, 52 (1st Cir.2003) (Common sense suggests that when a party makes a last-minute change that adds a new theory of liability, the opposing side is likely to suffer undue prejudice.). 42