Court Opinion

ID: 9630533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:13:07.248662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:09.402597
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Justice
dissenting.1
Wrong on the facts. Wrong on the law. Wrong on the result.
*505Because of the timing of what the majority has done, I am unable to explain very much more than that. I was scheduled to be out of the office the latter part of last week and all of this week but have come in, in the middle of the night, to prepare something to stress the extent to which I disagree with what the majority has done. Having less than 24 hours to respond to their opinion, I find the task so overwhelming that to begin to address any of their errors, even the really big ones, would detract from the many other errors which I do not have time to address.
I will have to leave it to another court to take a closer look at the issues. But generally, anybody getting sued for $50,000,000 needs more than the final thirty days before trial to discover and work into their overall defense the plaintiffs’ new theories, the substance of which was disclosed after the discovery deadline. The extent and result of the discovery Toyota has conducted to prepare for its defense in a very short period of time is truly remarkable. Toyota’s prior discovery has caused the plaintiffs to change theories, again. Toyota tested thé plaintiffs’ earlier theories with full scale crash testing. The results negated the plaintiffs’ earlier theories. So what does any resourceful plaintiff do? Change theories, of course. And changing theories is not the problem. Toyota should, however, at least be able to test the new theories with its
own experts in a manner that allows reasonable and rational trial preparation. Maybe the majority has forgotten, if they ever knew, what it is like going to trial with $50,000,000 on the line. This really becomes a problem when you are working inside thirty days to trial, you just received the latest trial theories, of liability or defense, and the trial court will not let you take live depositions of eyewitnesses and a party, both of whom appear to be going to testify five at trial, nor will the trial court give you more time to prepare to respond to the new theories.
There are so many really serious issues raised in this proceeding that deserve a more thorough examination and a more reasoned response that I cannot vote to deny the petition on the record before us. I would reject the majority’s effort to slant this proceeding by their paper machete opinion which hides the issues, and I would request a response so that I could carefully consider the numerous issues presented by Toyota. Because the majority denies the mandamus without a full and proper treatment of the issues and refuses to request a response, I dissent.

. Due to being out of the office and the need to issue this dissenting opinion when the majority insists upon issuing their opinion, the *505final version of this dissenting opinion will not bear a wet-ink signature.