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

Heading: Whether the defendants' discovery violation merits a new trial

Text: 43 We do not minimize the significance of the defendants' discovery violation. Yet the failure of the defendants to supplement their responses to the interrogatories or otherwise inform the plaintiff in a timely manner of the information about Officers Ortiz and Sein does not excuse the plaintiff from her failure to bring this discovery violation to the attention of the district court at trial. In response to a valid Rule 26(e) objection, a court may impose sanctions on one who defies the rule, including exclusion of evidence, granting a continuance, or other appropriate action. See Licciardi, 140 F.3d at 363. Instead of making a timely objection under Rule 26(e) during the trial, the plaintiff chose to cross-examine the defense witnesses about the absence of Officer Sein and asked the jury to draw an adverse inference against the defendants because of his absence. If the plaintiff had raised a timely Rule 26(e) objection, the district court might have granted her a continuance to produce Officer Sein's testimony or could have excluded the testimony regarding the identity of the investigating officer. 44 Colón argues that a request for a continuance to find Officer Sein was not a practical option during the short, 2-day trial. To support this point, she cites Klonoski v. Mahlab, 156 F.3d 255 (1st Cir.1998). In Klonoski, we recognized that a continuance is not always a feasible response to a party's discovery violation. Id. at 273-74. Where the damage from the surprise testimony cannot be undone or where the continuance would undoubtedly be too lengthy, other sanctions are more appropriate. Id. In this case, we have little basis for evaluating the practicality of a continuance because plaintiff's counsel never raised the possibility with the court. What we do know suggests that a brief continuance may well have been feasible. The district court suggested in its explanation of the denial of the plaintiff's motion for a new trial that Officer Sein was even announced by defendant and later put at plaintiff's disposition at trial. The trial was conducted in San Juan. Officer Sein was apparently an officer in San Juan. Plaintiff's counsel did not identify Officer Sein as a rebuttal witness. Yet plaintiff's counsel's cross-examination of the defense witnesses and his closing argument to the jury revealed that he immediately understood the importance of the testimony of defendants about the respective role of Officers Ortiz and Sein in the investigation. 45 Moreover, nothing prevented plaintiff's counsel from arguing that the defendants had violated Rule 26(e) by failing to supplement their response to the interrogatories. Plaintiff's counsel had at hand (or at least in the case file) all of the information he needed to document that violation. If he had acted in a timely fashion, he might well have been able to ask not only for a continuance but also for a sanction that might have precluded the defendants from relying on testimony crucial to their case about the respective roles of Officers Ortiz and Sein. The court was never given the opportunity to consider a sanction within the framework of the trial that would have been a proportionate response to the discovery violation. 46 It is well settled that Rule 59 provides a means of relief in cases in which a party has been unfairly made the victim of surprise. The surprise, however, must be inconsistent with substantial justice in order to justify a grant of a new trial. Perez-Perez, 993 F.2d at 287 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In the absence of any objection to the admission of the defense witnesses' surprise testimony or any request for a continuance or other sanction because of a discovery violation, we cannot conclude that its admission was inconsistent with substantial justice. Id.; see also Poulin v. Greer, 18 F.3d 979, 985 (1st Cir.1994) ([P]laintiffs never requested a recess prior to [the] testimony in order to counter its alleged force. Courts have looked with disfavor upon parties who claim surprise and prejudice but who do not ask for a recess so that they may attempt to counter the opponent['s] testimony. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). Thus, the discovery violation by the defendants did not justify a new trial for the plaintiff.