Opinion ID: 22968
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: District Court's Grant of a New Trial

Text: 4 Our review of a district court's decision to grant a new trial is broader than our review of a district court's denial of a new trial, but the standard remains one of abuse of discretion. 1 Our review of the ruling on the motion for a new trial reveals no such abuse. The court gave sound and adequate reasons for its ruling and we find no basis to warrant reinstatement of the original jury verdict. In the first trial Reddin was permitted to introduce evidence of Horseshoe's placement of warning signs and tape around the area of his fall. The court correctly notes extensive case law holding that such evidence is inadmissible under Rule 407 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. This fully justified the trial court's conclusion that allowing such evidence constituted prejudicial error. Further, the court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Reddin's contention that such evidence only served to impeach a Horseshoe witness, most notably because Reddin's counsel argued in closing that if nothing was wrong with the floor, why did they rope it off? We find such error sufficient for the grant of a new trial. We, accordingly, need not discuss the court's conclusion relative to the award of $800,000. 5