Opinion ID: 202321
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defense witnesses' allegedly perjured testimony

Text: 27 Officer Sein's affidavit stated that Officer Ortiz, not Officer Sein, interviewed the defense witnesses. The affidavit directly contradicted the testimony of the defense witnesses. Yet the district court rejected the plaintiff's argument that Officer Sein's affidavit required a new trial. Specifically, the district court found that Colón had not been duly diligent in obtaining the evidence of perjury and that, in any event, there was ample evidence to support the verdict: There is no evidence that the affidavit could not have been obtained earlier had plaintiff been properly diligent. The existence of this witness was known to the plaintiff for months; Officer Sein was even announced by defendant and later put at plaintiff's disposition at trial. If plaintiff chose not to call Officer Sein as a rebuttal witness that was a choice she waived. She cannot now be heard to claim that the alleged testimony of this witness, through an affidavit, is so new and so material that it would change the outcome of the trial, inasmuch as she did not attempt to bring his testimony forth during trial. In any event, even if Officer Sein had testified at trial, his testimony would have been cumulative to plaintiff's own testimony, or as impeachment to defendants' testimony. Therefore, ultimately, this alleged new evidence would not have produced a different outcome at trial. There was more than sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict. The Court finds that the jury's verdict was reasonable and that it was based on ample evidence brought forth during trial. 28 Colón-Millín v. Sears, No. 00-1213, slip op. at -4 (D.P.R. Mar. 11, 2005). 29 On appeal, Colón argues that the district court wrongly construed her motion for a new trial as one based on newly discovered evidence and thus improperly required a finding of due diligence to explain why the information had not been introduced at trial. 4 According to the plaintiff, [t]he reason the affidavit was not obtained before the trial took place was not due to availability. It was not procured because Officer Sein's role at the scene of the accident, and after, was not in dispute on the eve of trial. In other words, the plaintiff argues that the defendants misled her to believe that the fact that Officer Ortiz interviewed the witnesses was uncontested. By doing so, the defendants concealed a key aspect of their defense theory—that Officer Ortiz did not conduct the investigation at all. The purpose of this perjured testimony, according to the plaintiff, was to efface all evidentiary weight to Officer Ortiz's testimony and the police report, which were central to Appellant's case and to support[] the fabrication of a `witness' [Sierra] who happened to be at the sidewalk that day, a Sears employee nonetheless. 30 There is some merit to the plaintiff's contention that the district court wrongly construed her motion as one based on newly discovered evidence, and thus improperly required a showing of due diligence to explain why the evidence was not discovered prior to trial. Given the nature of the plaintiff's arguments, her motion is best construed as a request for a new trial on the basis of fraudulent and unexpected testimony. Thus, we must determine whether, under the standards applicable to a motion made on that basis, the district court abused its discretion in denying the plaintiff's motion for a new trial.
31 We cannot conclude that Officer Sein's affidavit constitutes evidence of fraud sufficient to merit a new trial. The burden on the moving party to prove fraud is high: 32 [The moving party] must clear a high hurdle in order to set aside the verdict based on their allegations of fraud. The moving party must demonstrate fraud by clear and convincing evidence and must show that the fraud foreclosed full and fair preparation or presentation of its case. We have explained that fraud on the court occurs[] where it can be demonstrated, clearly and convincingly, that a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system's ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party's claim or defense. 33 Perez-Perez v. Popular Leasing Rental, Inc., 993 F.2d 281, 285 (1st Cir.1993) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir.1989)). Officer Sein's affidavit merely confirms parts of Officer Ortiz's testimony and does not, in and of itself, establish that the defendants knowingly provided false testimony or sentiently crafted a scheme to hamper the plaintiff's presentation of her case. Thus, even if the district court had treated the motion for a new trial as one based on fraud rather than newly discovered evidence, the motion could not have been granted on that basis.
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
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.