Court Opinion

ID: 9485888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:33:08.294136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:25.580386
License: Public Domain

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I do not find anything improper or unusual about the way the district court proceeded in this case. As I understand the proceedings, once this court remanded Smith I to the district court, the district court set the case for trial. The district court and the parties decided to conduct the trial in bifurcated fashion, trying the statute of limitations issue first. If the statute of limitations did not bar the suit, the parties would then try the liability and damages issues. This made good sense because the statute of limitations defense could end the case. As to the statute of limitations trial, it was the appellant’s position that Robert Smith made statements to his lawyer, Griffin Sikes, Sr., and the lawyer’s secretary, Gloria Davis Wiggins, on March 20, 1987, which indicated when Robert Smith first knew that he had been defrauded.
Even though the district court had indicated that it probably would exclude the testimony of Griffin Sikes, Sr., and Gloria Davis Wiggins, the parties agreed to waive a jury trial and to try the statutes of limitations issue to the court in a bench trial. At the trial, the district court excluded the Wiggins’ and Sikes’ testimony, and the appellants lost the statute of limitations case. Consequently, no other issues needed to be tried; the statute of limitations barred the lawsuit.
Here is the problem from the appellant’s side of the case. If Smith were alive, he would testify that he first discovered the fraud on March 20, 1987. Smith would then call Sikes and Wiggins to testify that he told them on March 20, 1987, of just learning of the fraud. With that testimony, Smith would create a fact issue as to when he first learned of the fraud. Of course, the other side would introduce evidence attempting to prove that Smith knew or should have learned of the fraud earlier than March 20,1987. As it now stands, with Smith dead and Wiggins’ and Sikes’ testimony excluded, the appellant has no evidence of when Smith discovered or should have discovered the fraud. The appellant cannot create a fact issue on the statute of limitations — not to mention prevailing. The case should not be remanded for trial because the outcome is certain: a directed verdict because the statute of limitations bars the lawsuit. The appellant must have the excluded evidence in order to go forward on anything in this case.
The appellant called the witnesses so that this court would have a proffer with which to determine whether the testimony of Sikes and Wiggins violated the hearsay rule, or fell within the prohibitions of the Alabama Dead-man’s Statute. The parties have brought *495nothing on appeal in this case except the district court’s ruling on the admissibility of evidence and the refusal to allow an amendment to a pleading.
The majority should decide this case based on the issues the parties framed and briefed: issues regarding admission of evidence. The parties waived a jury trial, went to trial, and the appellant suffered a directed verdict because she was unable to get into evidence crucial testimony. If the district court erred in its ruling regarding evidence, the appellant is entitled to a new trial. Instead, the majority affords the appellant a new trial without ever ruling on the evidence issues. On remand, the parties will be in the same positions they were in when the case ended in the district court. Neither the district court nor the parties are aided through this appeal.