Opinion ID: 2633504
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Severance of Champion's Counterclaims

Text: Domke separately argues that the court erred by denying his motion to sever the trial of the counterclaims from the trial of his complaint. He asserts that allowing Champion to present its counterclaims unfairly tainted the jury's perception of his case, and he suggests that Champion's pursuit of its counterclaims was motivated more from a desire to cast him in a negative light than from belief in their merits. Under Alaska Civil Rule 42(b), separate trials are appropriate to ensure convenience or to avoid prejudice, or when conducive to expedition and economy. The trial court's decision to deny a severance motion is reviewed for abuse of discretion. [20] We have held that a separate trial on a defendant's counterclaims is unnecessary when the counterclaims share the same issues of fact as the defendant's affirmative defenses. [21] When that is the case, the plaintiff suffers no prejudice other than the unavoidable prejudice caused by the defendant's assertion of the factual basis of the affirmative defenses, so trying the counterclaims with the plaintiff's case in chief is conducive to expedition and economy. [22] Here, Champion asserted an after-acquired evidence defense to Domke's retaliatory discharge claim. Under this theory, it claimed that it would have fired Domke once it discovered that he had kept the consultant overpayments. Asserting this defense required that Champion present the same evidence that it required for its counterclaims: that Domke had wrongfully retained the overpayments. Indeed, before trial, in response to Domke's complaints that the counterclaims would unfairly put his character at issue, Champion offered to stipulate that the same facts underlay the counterclaims and its affirmative defenses. Because Domke asserts no concrete reason that presentation of the counterclaims prejudiced his case beyond the damage that would have been done by Champion's prosecution of its affirmative defense, we find that the trial court did not err by denying his motion.