Court Opinion

ID: 9473114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:19:26.420997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:19.377957
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This dissent is written to express the view that the district court’s refusal to order Delta Queen’s compliance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(3) constituted a per se violation of that rule and was thus reversible error.
While acknowledging that the second paragraph of Rule 26(b)(3) makes a party’s previous statements “concerning the action or its subject matter” discoverable as of right, the majority opinion nevertheless holds that the district court’s refusal to order Delta Queen’s compliance with the rule is harmless error because Miles suffered no prejudice. In reaching this conclusion, the majority stresses that “[i]t was patent ... at the pretrial conference that Miles’ credibility would be attacked” and that “Delta Queen’s counsel had informed Miles’ counsel at the pretrial conference that he would introduce pretrial statements for impeachment purposes.” Majority op. *1354at 1353. The indisputable fact remains, however, that the specific pretrial statements which Delta Queen intended to use were never identified to Miles. In my view, therein lies the prejudice. Simply put, Rule 26(b)(3), in lucid terms, allows a party to discover his pretrial statements. Further, as the majority points out, the trial court has no discretion whatsoever in making its discovery rulings in this regard. In other words, the court was obligated by Rule 26(b)(3) to order Delta Queen’s compliance with Miles’ discovery request. Hence, a violation of the rule denotes inherent prejudice to the party seeking his pretrial statements.
The result reached by the majority of this panel condones trial by ambush, the very occurrence that the rule was created to prevent. Moreover, this result has the practical effect of requiring an affirmative showing by a party that he will suffer some identifiable degree of actual prejudice in order to obtain production of his prior statements. This, Rule 26(b)(3) does not require.
For the foregoing reasons, this dissent is respectfully made.