Court Opinion

ID: 9729397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:33:56.443178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:57.549822
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE QUINN, dissenting: I dissent. The most important function of a court of review is to provide direction to the trial courts as to how to address issues which arise at trial. We do this by uniformly applying established legal principles to the facts of the cases we review, and it is upon this uniform body of precedent that trial courts must rely when reaching their decisions. The majority’s decision in the instant case is in direct conflict with this principle. The majority holds that “[i]f Legato had read the depositions and informed the plaintiffs counsel that their contents had no bearing on the opinions she stated in her deposition and still wished to express at trial, it is understandable that plaintiffs counsel elected not to make a supplemental disclosure. Conners v. Poticha, 293 Ill. App. 3d 944, 951 (1997).” 322 Ill. App. 3d at 798. There are two significant problems with this holding. First, Dr. Legato did not inform plaintiffs counsel that the contents of the nine depositions, which she reviewed at that attorney’s request, had no bearing on her opinions. Quite the contrary, Dr. Legato testified that the depositions concerning the blood gas levels influenced the testimony she had already given and that she could not say that those depositions would not influence her further testimony, even though she was instructed by the court to “separate out” the information from those depositions. Secondly, Conners interpreted Supreme Court Rule 220, the predecessor to Supreme Court Rule 213. The significance of this distinction cannot be overstated. “Trial courts should be more reluctant under Rule 213 than they were under former Rule 220 (1) to permit the parties to deviate from the strict disclosure requirements, or (2) not to impose severe sanctions when such deviations occur. Indeed, we believe one of the reasons for new Rule 213 was the need to require stricter adherence to disclosure requirements.” Department of Transportation v. Crull, 294 Ill. App. 3d 531, 535-39 (1998). The majority attempts to distinguish Crull, Seef v. Ingalls Memorial Hospital, 311 Ill. App. 3d 7 (1999), and Susnis v. Radfar, 317 111. App. 3d 817 (2000). The proposition that Supreme Court Rule 213 imposes stricter disclosure requirements than Supreme Court Rule 220 and trial courts should impose severe sanctions when Rule 213 is violated has been espoused in numerous other cases: Copeland v. Stebco Products Corp., 316 Ill. App. 3d 932 (2000); LoCoco v. XL Disposal Corp., 307 Ill. App. 3d 684 (1999); McMath v. Katholi, 304 Ill. App. 3d 369 (1999); Spain v. Owens Corning Fiberglass Corp., 304 Ill. App. 3d 356 (1999); Warrender v. Millsop, 304 Ill. App. 3d 260 (1999); and Adami v. Belmonte, 302 Ill. App. 3d 17 (1998). The majority correctly recites the factors that a trial court must consider in determining whether exclusion of a witness is an appropriate sanction: (1) surprise to the adverse party; (2) the prejudicial effect of the witness’s testimony; (3) the nature of the witness’s testimony; (4) the diligence of the adverse party; (5) whether the objection to the testimony was timely; and (6) the good faith of the party calling the witness. Boatman’s National Bank v. Martin, 155 Ill. 2d 305, 314 (1993); Warrender v. Millsop, 304 Ill. App. 3d 260 (1999). However, the majority’s opinion does not apply these factors to the facts of this case. The trial court conducted a lengthy voir dire of the witness out of the presence of the jury, heard arguments and made specific findings. The trial court explained its findings in a six-page written order denying the motion for new trial. The trial court carefully went through each of the factors set out in Boatman’s National Bank prior to rendering its decision to strike Dr. Legato’s testimony. First, the court determined that the defense was surprised by the disclosure. It was not until a day into Dr. Legato’s testimony that it was revealed that Dr. Legato had reviewed additional depositions in preparing her opinion for trial. Second and third, the trial court noted that the jury would have heard the same criticisms of Dr. Abella from Dr. Legato as it heard from Dr. Papernik and therefore concluded that Dr. Legato’s testimony was cumulative. Although plaintiff argued that Dr. Legato was the “primary” opinion witness and that Dr. Abella’s credentials were not as impressive as those of Dr. Legato, the trial court rejected these claims. Fourth, the trial court noted that the defense had been diligent in requesting supplemental interrogatories. Plaintiff’s claim that supplemental interrogatories were not required because the discovery request for them had occurred in the initial case, not the suit that was refiled, was properly rejected by the trial court in light of plaintiffs agreement to allow the prior discovery to “stand,” and in light of supplemental interrogatories filed under Rule 213 by defendant on January 22, 1996, qnd March 6, 1996, which specifically requested that plaintiff identify the bases of the plaintiffs opinion witnesses’ testimony. The court also noted that motion in limine No. 7 had requested that the parties be barred from offering testimony concerning additional materials relied upon or additional bases for expert opinions that were not disclosed at the expert witnesses’ depositions. Plaintiff did not object to this motion and it was granted pretrial. Fifth, the defense made prompt objection to Dr. Legato’s testimony as soon as it became clear that there had been a Rule 213 violation. Sixth, and most damning to the plaintiffs claims, the court made an express finding that plaintiff acted with a lack of good faith in failing to disclose the additional information to the defense. The majority writes that unless expert witnesses are put into “space or the deep freeze” after their depositions, it is to be expected that such witnesses will gain a deeper understanding of the issues in a case. 322 Ill. App. 3d at 800. The majority says this is to be expected of “a doctor who writes articles, sees patients, attends conferences and interacts with the medical community at large after having given her deposition testimony.” 322 Ill. App. 3d at 800. While I do not argue with this supposition, it simply does not apply in this case. Here, shortly before trial commenced, plaintiffs counsel mailed nine depositions of witnesses to his retained expert witness. The majority concedes that this was done for the purpose of better preparing Dr. Legato for trial. Plaintiffs counsel then purposely failed to inform opposing counsel of this action in spite of receiving supplemental interrogatories before trial. Plaintiffs counsel’s actions also violated a motion in limine filed immediately prior to trial. Plaintiffs counsel did not handle the pretrial discovery in this case in a “lax manner” as the majority concludes. Plaintiffs counsel purposely violated Supreme Court Rule 213, purposely failed to truthfully answer pretrial special interrogatories, and purposely violated a motion in limine. The majority holds that the sanction imposed by the trial court was so severe it constituted an abuse of discretion. The alternative solutions suggested by the majority are wholly inadequate. The majority suggests that the trial court “could have limited the answers on cross-examination to only those matters she had read prior to her deposition.” 322 Ill. App. 3d at 800. This is exactly what the trial court attempted to do in its attempts to rehabilitate the witness. A fair reading of the record in this case shows that the trial court went to great extremes to have the witness say that she could testify in a manner which did not violate the motion in limine and supplemental interrogatory requests. The expert witness testified that the depositions she had been sent had influenced her testimony on direct and she could not say that those depositions would not influence the remainder of her testimony. For this same reason, it is clear that the “taking of an additional examination of the witness” (322 Ill. App. 3d at 800) would also not solve the problem created by plaintiffs counsel’s discovery violations. The majority holds the trial court could have “punished the erring lawyer in a more traditional fashion.” 322 111. App. 3d at 800. While the majority does not explicitly say so, I take this to mean the trial court could have held plaintiffs counsel in contempt. The majority does not explain how this action would solve the problem in this case. Appellate court holdings that encourage trial courts to hold lawyers in contempt often do so without giving adequate consideration to the consequences that result from such holdings. Lawyers who are found in contempt must report such findings to many prospective employers and, as a practical matter, even one contempt finding will often result in disqualifying that lawyer from appointment to the judiciary. Bar associations that review judges running for retention or for higher office often view holding lawyers in contempt to be evidence of “bad temperament” on the part of the judge. More importantly, the appellate court often reverses such findings. I would suggest that any appellate court judge who finds a trial court to be in error for not holding a lawyer in contempt should himself or herself feel duty bound to refer that lawyer to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. The majority also suggests that the trial court could have granted a mistrial as a sanction. Granting a mistrial in the instant case would punish both parties for the purposeful misconduct of one of the lawyers. Awarding costs in addition to granting the mistrial is also unrealistic as defense counsel conceivably should be compensated for hundreds of hours of work. While the majority writes that “the punishment should fit the crime,” it has rewarded plaintiffs counsel with a new trial after a jury rejected his case. In doing so, the majority sends a message to attorneys that the appellate court will reverse a trial court if two members of a panel would have handled the situation in a different manner. That is not the standard we are to apply. A decision to impose a particular discovery sanction is not to be reversed absent a clear abuse of discretion. Shimanovsky v. General Motors Corp., 181 Ill. 2d 112, 123 (1998). As the Illinois Supreme Court recently pointed out, this standard has been recognized as “ ‘the most deferential standard of review available with the exception of no review at all. [Citation.]’ ” People v. Coleman, 183 Ill. 2d 366, 387 (1998). The rules on discovery are mandatory rules of procedure. Department of Transportation v. Crull, 294 Ill. App. 3d at 537. To allow either party to ignore Rule 213’s plain language defeats its purpose and encourages tactical gamesmanship. Spain v. Owens Corning Fiberglass Corp., 304 Ill. App. 3d at 368. The trial court’s action in excluding the witness in this case was not only within the broad range of permissible sanctions, its action was correct. Indeed, the extremely thorough and even-handed manner in which the trial court handled the situation was laudable. The trial court correctly applied the law, even though in doing so, the very sympathetic plaintiffs case was damaged. We expect our trial courts to make this type of tough decision, and when those decisions are made correctly, they should be affirmed.