Opinion ID: 2051792
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Refusing to Consider Alleged Fraud on the Court by the Journal

Text: Lett next argues that the trial justice abused his discretion in refusing to view a videotape that allegedly exposed how the Journal fraudulently misrepresented to the court that Dan Barry (Barry), a former Journal reporter and a co-author of the allegedly defamatory Journal article about them, was unavailable to testify because of his medical condition. Barry apparently was battling throat cancer at the time this case came to trial in the fall of 1999. The essence of Lett's argument is that the Journal also committed fraud on the court with regard to its alleged misrepresentations to the court concerning Barry's availability to testify, and that these two offenses somehow should have canceled each other out. There are many problems with Lett's argument. First, it was not only untimely with respect to the Journal's motion to delay the trial, but also it was irrelevant to the court's fraud-on-the-court finding against herself and Giuliano. Because the Journal's alleged misrepresentations about Barry's availability to testify would not undo plaintiffs' fraud on the court, the Barry videotape was irrelevant to the court's decision on the motion to vacate. In any event, Lett did not raise this argument until after the trial justice found that she had committed fraud on the court and dismissed her case as a result. Second, the two situations were fundamentally different. The Journal tried but failed to get the court to postpone the trial so that a witness could testify. Thus, whatever representations it made vis-à-vis Barry's availability proved to be bootless. Giuliano and Lett, on the other hand, not only tried but they succeeded in getting the court to agree that Giuliano, a party, should be excused from testifying in his own case. Thus, even were we to assume, arguendo, that the Journal had committed some type of fraud on the court with respect to Barry's availability, the trial justice did not abuse his discretion in declining to view the Barry videotape in connection with deciding whether to vacate his order finding that Lett and Giuliano were guilty of committing fraud on the court and dismissing their complaint. Indeed, the trial justice noted the fundamental distinctions between these two situations: Barry was a mere witness, not a party, who lived and worked outside this jurisdiction, in New York. At the time of the trial, he no longer worked for the Journal. He was, therefore, beyond the trial-subpoena power of both the court and the parties. [4] These distinctions were critical because they indicated why the two situations were fundamentally different. In short, we do not see how the Journal's failed attempt to postpone the trial because of Barry's situation aids Lett in her appeal. Even if this Court believed that the trial justice had abused his discretion in not viewing the videotape concerning Barry, it still would not ameliorate Lett's commission of fraud on the court, and certainly it did not support her Rule 60(b) motion to vacate the court's dismissal order. Therefore, we conclude, the trial justice's refusal to view the videotape concerning Barry, and his failure to find that the Journal had committed fraud on the court, were irrelevant to its ruling on plaintiffs' misconduct.