Opinion ID: 1749324
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Timeliness of Challenge

Text: Finally, Defendants contend that the trial court erred in granting a new trial because Johnson's juror nondisclosure argument was untimely, as it was brought after Johnson received an adverse verdict following a six-day jury trial. In support, Defendants point to McBurney , where that court commented in dicta about the issue. 248 S.W.3d at 41. In McBurney , the court of appeals noted that the issue of timeliness and waiver was first raised by this Court in Brines . In Brines , those plaintiffs appealed an adverse verdict on the basis of one juror's failure to disclose during voir dire that he had been a defendant in multiple collection cases. Id. at 139. The defendant argued a claim based on litigation history must be raised before submission, and if it is not, it is untimely and waived. Id. at 140. The Court rejected the defendants' argument that an issue regarding prior litigation experience must be raised before submission. Id. The court of appeals resurrected the issue in McBurney , stating that the issue may not necessarily be settled forever in view of the technological advances in the thirteen years since Brines .  248 S.W.2d at 41. McBurney displayed the court of appeals' willingness to delve into a claim about the issue of timeliness and waiver, at least with regard to cases that extend beyond a short time. Id. With the relative present day ease of procuring the venire member's prior litigation experiences, via Case.net, [w]e encourage counsel to make such challenges before submission of a case whenever practicable. Id. at 41. This Court cannot convict the trial court of error in following the law in existence at the time of trial. See, e.g., McCracken v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, 298 S.W.3d 473, 479-80 (Mo. banc 2009). Further, there was no evidence that it was practicable for the attorneys in this case to have investigated the litigation history of all of the selected jurors prior to the jury being empanelled. Accordingly, there was no error in the trial court's determination that Johnson's juror nondisclosure argument was timely. However, in light of advances in technology allowing greater access to information that can inform a trial court about the past litigation history of venire members, it is appropriate to place a greater burden on the parties to bring such matters to the court's attention at an earlier stage. Litigants should not be allowed to wait until a verdict has been rendered to perform a Case.net search for jurors' prior litigation history when, in many instances, the search also could have been done in the final stages of jury selection or after the jury was selected but prior to the jury being empanelled. Litigants should endeavor to prevent retrials by completing an early investigation. Until a Supreme Court rule can be promulgated to provide specific direction, to preserve the issue of a juror's nondisclosure, a party must use reasonable efforts to examine the litigation history on Case.net of those jurors selected but not empanelled and present to the trial court any relevant information prior to trial. [4] To facilitate this search, the trial courts are directed to ensure the parties have an opportunity to make a timely search prior to the jury being empanelled and shall provide the means to do so, if counsel indicates that such means are not reasonably otherwise available.