Opinion ID: 198081
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidentiary Rulings Relating to Adell's Liability

Text: 10 At the outset Adell argues that it was error to admit evidence that Chipco's casino customers had returned thousands of chips manufactured with Adell resin, since Chipco conceded that it had destroyed all but a small sampling of the returned chips prior to trial, thereby depriving Adell of any opportunity to discover independent proof that the destroyed chips had been manufactured from General Electric resin, rather than Adell resin. Adell further contends that Chipco continued to destroy the returned chips even after Adell had made its discovery request that Chipco turn over all returned chips to Adell. 11 We review the denial of the motion in limine only for abuse of discretion. See Gonzalez-Marin v. Equitable Assurance Soc'y of the U.S., 845 F.2d 1140, 1147 (1st Cir.1988); see also Blinzler v. Marriott Int'l, Inc., 81 F.3d 1148, 1158 (1st Cir.1996). The district court, in its discretion, may exclude related evidence by way of sanctioning a willful or negligent destruction or alteration of physical evidence which causes unfair prejudice to another party. See Sacramona v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 106 F.3d 444, 446 (1st Cir.1997). We discern no abuse of discretion by the trial judge. 12 Unlike most types of physical evidence, casino chips are a form of quasi-currency, which State gaming laws commonly require the casino or chip manufacturer to destroy upon removal from service. See, e.g., N.J. Admin. Code, tit. 19, ch. 46, § 19:46-1.6 (Inventory, Security, Storage and Destruction of Gaming Chips). Yet early in the discovery process, after Chipco had informed Adell of this ongoing chip destruction program, Adell inexplicably failed to ask the district court to intervene. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 37; R.W. Int'l Corp. v. Welch Foods, Inc., 937 F.2d 11, 18-19 (1st Cir.1991) (noting that [Federal Civil] Rule 37 is a case management tool which sets forth a clear path to be followed if a party believes that another litigant is not cooperating in the discovery process, and that defendants should have filed a motion to compel production). Instead, Adell lay in wait until the eve of trial before filing its motion in limine. 13 In these circumstances the district court fairly could infer that Adell had bided its time in order to exploit the incurability of the alleged discovery violation by Chipco, rather than undertake its own chemical analysis of the resin content of the sample chips proffered by Chipco at trial. Furthermore, Chipco adduced trial testimony that its customers had never complained about defective chips between 1986 and 1994--while Chipco was using General Electric resin--but only after Chipco began using Adell resin. Adell cross-examined these witnesses at length. 14 Finally, the trial judge instructed the jury that it could draw an inference adverse to Chipco if it were to find that Chipco had destroyed the chips for other than an innocent reason. See Blinzler, 81 F.3d at 1159 (endorsing similar instruction). As the destruction of chips did not unfairly prejudice Adell in these circumstances, the denial of its motion in limine did not constitute an abuse of discretion. See Gonzalez-Marin, 845 F.2d at 1147.
15 Adell next challenges the denial of its motion to exclude from evidence the so-called chip replacement binder (CRB) maintained by Chipco. In November 1996, Adell sought to discover any customer file folders containing customer complaints received by Chipco relating to chips manufactured from Adell resin. Rather than provide Adell with the entire contents of its customer files, Chipco produced the documents it considered relevant to the claims in litigation and compiled them in the CRB. These documents included the original customer-order forms, the Chipco invoices, and a Job Production Cost Summary detailing what it cost Chipco to manufacture both the original and the replacement chips. Early in 1997 Adell exhaustively deposed Chipco officials regarding the contents of the CRB. In due course Chipco included the CRB on the Joint Exhibit List. 16 Once again on the eve of trial, Adell filed a motion in limine urging for the first time that the CRB be excluded because Chipco had not produced the customer files in their entirety. Since the chips returned by customers bore no distinctive markings which would permit a visual determination as to whether they had been manufactured from resin supplied by Adell or by General Electric, Adell surmised that other documents in the customer files might have enabled it to trace individual returned chips back to Chipco's original customer invoices, and thereby establish that particular chips had been manufactured at a time Chipco was using only General Electric resin. 17 The trial judge denied the motion on the ground that Adell's objection should have been raised during discovery. We agree. 1 Whatever the breadth of its original document request, had Adell truly been concerned that Chipco either misinterpreted or willfully failed to comply with the discovery request, it should have conferred in a timely manner with a view to obtaining voluntary disclosure by Chipco, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a)(2)(A) (requiring certification of movant's good-faith consultation), failing which it should have moved to compel production, see id., well in advance of trial. See DesRosiers v. Moran, 949 F.2d 15, 22 n. 8 (1st Cir.1991) (noting that courts have often deemed discovery violations to have been waived where parties fail to bring the matter of non-production to the court's attention at the pretrial hearing or in some other timely fashion); Allen Pen Co. v. Springfield Photo Mount Co., 653 F.2d 17, 23 (1st Cir.1981) (noting that party which deliberately passes up available discovery remedies cannot wait for trial and then seek close to a declaration of victory on the issue); Clinchfield R.R. Co. v. Lynch, 700 F.2d 126, 132 (4th Cir.1983) (same); see also Jackson v. Harvard Univ., 900 F.2d 464, 469 (1st Cir.1990) (Preclusion and negative inference are grave steps, 'by no means an automatic response to a delayed disclosure ... [or] where failure to make discovery [is] not willful.' ) (citation omitted). 18 Moreover, it is important to note that Adell does not suggest that it acquired any new information regarding the contents of the CRB between April 1997 and the commencement of trial. Coupled with its procrastination after learning of the ongoing destruction of returned chips, see supra Section II.A.1, its failure to move to compel production of the complete customer file folders until the eve of trial gave rise to a virtually inevitable inference that Adell was not so much interested in obtaining the customer folders to disprove its contract liability, as to hold in abeyance a putative discovery violation with which to prevent Chipco from introducing at trial the highly prejudicial evidence contained in the CRB. For these reasons, we reject the contention that the trial judge abused his discretion in treating Adell's stratagem as yet another instance of unfair brinkmanship. 2