Court Opinion

ID: 9854074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:00:19.825482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:54.311628
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
The English journalist, novelist and poet Gilbert Keith Chesterton once wrote that: “There is something to be said for every error, but whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.” A protective order that practically eliminates a litigant’s ability to carry a case forward will undoubtedly minimize the amount of judicial resources spent on that case. However, such a protective order will also ensure the downfall of the litigant who is subject to it, and perhaps subject the litigant to paying attorneys’ fees because the protective order made the evidence mustered for the case appear to be almost non-existent. So, however much judicial time and energy may have been conserved through the application of a protective order in this case, the fact remains that it was error for the trial judge to apply it, and for this Court to uphold its application.
Counsel for the appellant, David H. Harney, made this point as emphatically and forcefully as possible during the oral reargument:
THE COURT: My question is this: The protective order permitted you to ask the Court for authority to take any deposition that you want to the extent that it wasn’t covered in the multi[-district] litigation.
COUNSEL: Absolutely not, Your Honor. Absolutely not. I’ve never heard that construction with all due respect until this date. What the protective order in effect said was that we could not take any of the depositions that we noticed to be taken in Ohio. That we had to somehow or another rely upon depositions taken in multi-district litigation over which we had no control — which we absolutely refused to engage in. We were invited to engage in it, we were solicited by the federal judge Rubin in Ohio to enter into that multidistrict litigation, and absolutely refused to do so and wanted to stay in the state court in Idaho.
THE COURT: Let me quote you from page 222 of the transcript, the next to last page. The protective order reads: “If more specific information is provided to the court showing that there are areas which have not previously been subject to discovery, the court would permit discovery in those matters.”
COUNSEL: Yes, and we did later on in December 1987, make a motion for an order ... we made a motion for reconsideration and a motion for an order shortening time. Each was denied within seconds of the time of filing with a great big writing, “Denied,” Deborah Bail, District Judge. We never had a hearing on either one.
THE COURT: That was not a motion showing that there are areas that you have not been able to obtain by use of the depositions in the multi-district litigation and therefore you request permission. That merely asks her to reconsider the decision that she’d already made. Is that correct?
COUNSEL: It was a motion for reconsideration, yes, Your Honor, but there was no way that we could ever present to any judge in this state or any other state the questions that we were going to ask of the adverse witnesses and compare those questions with questions that were asked by somebody else unknown to us in multi-district litigation. A litigant is not required, in taking a deposition or getting testimony from an adverse witness, to make an offer of proof. Absolutely not required to do so. That’s the effect of what Judge Bail said when she used the language which is in the court’s opinion here: “If more specific information is provided to the court showing that there are areas which have not previously been the subject of discovery, the court would permit dis*487covery into those matters.” Well, that would require an offer of proof on our part. It would require us to obtain massive information consisting of thousands and thousands of pages for me to reveal my intent in taking an adverse witnesses’ deposition and say now this is what I intend to ask and this is what some other unknown attorney asked on some date three, four, five years ago. There is no such procedure that I’m aware of that’s authorized by law, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Counsel, irrespective of any MDL [multi-district litigation] proceedings the trial judge, you would grant, has the right to control discovery.
COUNSEL: Not this type of discovery, Your Honor. This is an absolute right. The right to take adverse witnesses’ depositions, the executive of the defendant company, is an absolute right. It’s part of due process. This is a child who has suffered the loss of an arm due to the ingestion of Bendectin according to her theory. Now, let’s assume just hypothetically, that I were allowed to go to Ohio and take the deposition of the one at Merrell Dow most knowledgeable about side effects and adverse reactions, and I give that person a hypothetical question in a deposition where he is under oath. And I say now, please assume that the mother in this case had no genetic problem in her family and assume that the father in this case had no genetic problem in the family of his by which to cause the child to have an inherited defect by which she is born without an arm. Assume further that the mother in this case, during the crucial point of her pregnancy ingested nothing other than Bendectin. Assume that she ingested no other drug. Assume that she was not exposed to any toxic substance. Mr. Scientist at Merrell Dow, do you have any opinion as to the cause of this child being born without an arm? Answer: Yes, the ingestion of Bendectin by the mother, if you prove all of those things. But I was denied the opportunity of ever going to Ohio and taking any depositions.
THE COURT: Do you find this right to discovery in the sixth amendment?
COUNSEL: I find it absolute, Your Honor, without any question or equivocation. An absolute right.
THE COURT: Mr. Harney, are you here telling us that that very same question was not propounded to that very same witness in the depositions in the multistate litigation in Ohio, which you had available to you by merely paying the cost of obtaining them?
COUNSEL: Absolutely, and on that matter of cost. There is no evidence whatsoever in this record, Your Honor, with all due respect, as to what the cost would be per deposition or if they could ever be transcribed, or if they were transcribed. There is absolutely no evidence in this record to that effect.
THE COURT: But you are representing to this Court that that question was not asked.
COUNSEL: Absolutely, to my knowledge. It was never asked.
THE COURT: I mean, I guess we’d find out what your knowledge is. Did you go back and examine the depositions to see what was available?
COUNSEL: I did not. I talked to lawyers who were involved in it, who thought that the depositions were incompetently taken and one resigned from the committee because of that. I talked to Judge Rubin at the ABA convention, or not the convention but a special meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, to which I was invited by the president of the American Bar Association. I talked to those people about this case
THE COURT: I think we’re outside the record now, aren’t we? Quite a ways out.
COUNSEL: With all due respect, I think that the statement of this Supreme Court is outside the record because there is no record as to what the cost of any such deposition would have *488been, or if it was accessible or obtainable. There is no evidence. There was some statement made by a Merrell Dow attorney on the subject. That’s not evidence, that’s hearsay.
THE COURT: It seems to me that the order permitted you to go right back to Judge Bail and say we have attempted to get that information, it isn’t available, therefore we want to take depositions. And as I read her order, she would have given you that permission she said she would ...
COUNSEL: No way, Your Honor. If I may say, I’ve got the transcript of the hearing of August 19,1987, right here. That’s the transcript to which Judge Bail refers in her protective order quoted by this Court in its majority opinion: “The depositions taken in the federal multi-district litigation cover the areas which the plaintiffs now seek damages.” Absolutely false and no evidence whatsoever in any record to support that statement quoted by this Court in its majority opinion. Next statement: “At oral argument on the motion for protective order this Court repeatedly asked plaintiffs’ counsel what information was sought that was not already contained in the depositions which have already been taken in the multi-district litigation.” Again, absolutely false, no such question by Judge Bail. And then she goes on to deprecate us by saying: “Counsels’ only response was the vague statement that they would like to approach the case in their own way.” There’s nothing vague when we demanded then, and we demand now, the right to depose adverse witnesses in a drug liability case. There’s nothing vague about that. That’s her characterization. Then she goes on to say, as previously stated: “However, the depositions taken already accomplish that ...” How would Judge Bail ever know that? She never read the depositions. How would she know what they said? How would she ever know what I intended to ask? It just absolutely baffles me and puzzles me. I hate to be so vitriolic about this, Your Honors, but I’m very disturbed. I’ve been practicing law for 41 years, it’s never happened before in my career. Never, ever, that we want to take a deposition of an adverse party or its agent or executive wherever that might be, in Detroit, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, Cincinnati, Ohio, and the right has been denied. Now, there may be some cases where its a nonparty and its not necessary, but this is a party and they manufactured, they designed, they researched, they distributed the Bendectin which we claim, being ingested by the mother, was the cause of Sally, not somebody else in Ohio, but Sally being born without an arm. We had nothing to do with any of the Ohio litigants, nothing whatsoever. We had nothing to do with their counsel, we had nothing to do with the questions they asked, or how the proceedings were conducted. We had nothing to do with restrictive orders by Judge Rubin in the multi-district litigation about what questions could be put to what witnesses under what circumstances. We had an independent trial to go in the state of Idaho, not some other place, not some other plaintiff. We had one plaintiff, the injured child. Nobody else. That was our one and only client in this matter.
THE COURT: If your constitutional rights have been violated by this procedure, then the constitutional rights of everybody else in the federal multi-district litigation have also been violated.
COUNSEL: I would say yes, but I’m not involved in that. I deliberately stayed out, and I’ve already alluded to what I told Judge Rubin and I’m not going to repeat that. But I do think that their constitutional rights were violated and I don’t think that the case was presented properly at any time back there. I really mean that sincerely. The other thing is that in the unique geography of this case. This case is pending in state court in Idaho, the subpoena power that we might have ends at the border of the state. We had no right *489to go back to Ohio and subpoena these people, like the one most knowledgeable about side effects and adverse reactions. The only possible way of presenting that trial testimony was by way of the taking of depositions in Ohio. To which we agreed. It’s in the record. We said we will go and we will limit all of these depositions to a total of two days. There’s nothing onerous or bad about that, but we have been chastised by this Court and by the trial court for not presenting a better case. We couldn’t present anything better because it was denied to us. My hands were tied behind my back in this case by being disallowed the right to go back there, and I could have made all of the arguments in the world to Judge Bail. In August, Judge Bail said, and this is interesting, this is after a fairly lengthy hearing, she says, page 23 of the transcript, she’s referring to the ones that I have talked about today — the designees of Merrell Dow: “As to the others, I will allow you to inquire into areas that have not previously been inquired into in the multi-district litigation and require that objection be made as to specific questions so that I can have some basis to evaluate whether or not this is a new area. But I don’t want to duplicate what’s gone in the multi-district litigation.” At that time she is allowing this. Months later she grants the protective order. We asked for reconsideration. It was denied. I think it would have been an absolute total waste of time to attempt with Judge Bail to get any relief. She denied it twice. She granted it originally, then she denied it twice thereafter. I notice, Your Honor, that the red light is on. Thank you very much.
THE COURT: Mr. Harney, I don’t want to distract you from your chorus, but I’ve got a question that needs to be answered for me. Obviously, trial courts have the responsibility and the authority to control the course of that litigation.
COUNSEL: Yes.
THE COURT: Perhaps other judges may or may not have granted that order, but once it was in place it was something you had to deal with. I would like to know precisely what showing was made as to both need and new evidence not covered by these former depositions in the multi-district litigation. That’s the overwhelming question I’m dealing with right now.
COUNSEL: Yes. In the motion for reconsideration which was lodged in these proceedings ... it has a filing date of December 7, 1987, and the motion to reconsider states: “Come now the plaintiffs and move this court for an order reconsidering its decision entered in August 1987, and allowing plaintiffs to take the depositions of certain employees of Merrell Dow and the deposition of Paul Oreffice in conjunction with the deposition of plaintiffs’ and defendants’ expert witnesses as this case is prepared for trial. This motion is made and based upon Rule 26 allowing such discovery in the interests of justice the court’s order itself allowing reconsideration ‘upon additional showing’ and Rule 11 permitting such motions for such reconsideration.” That was the effort that we made to undo that which Judge Bail did by way of the protective order.
THE COURT: I understand that. My concern is what showing was made as to necessity or new information.
COUNSEL: Without getting the answers in Ohio, there’s no showing that I could have made. No way in the world, Your Honor ...
THE COURT: Excuse me. You’re just requesting the court to reconsider because you needed this additional discovery. But there is no showing as to what the need was nor as to what the new evidence may be, or even an indication of what it might be.
COUNSEL: Well, Your Honor, with all due respect, I started my career working as a research attorney for the Court of Appeal in San Francisco in 1948, and I *490knew in law school, I knew then, and I know today that you cannot prevail on behalf of a legitimate client unless you can produce evidence in court and if you’re suing a drug manufacturer who has the responsibility of research, testing, designing, promoting, and marketing, and selling a drug without going to the source of that you can’t win the case. I don’t need to tell anybody that. Nobody needs to tell me that. I mean its a fact of life, it really is.
THE COURT: I understand that.
COUNSEL: I don’t know what else we could have done.
THE COURT: Well, did you take advantage of the materials in the repository to formulate what you were looking for?
COUNSEL: No, because I said earlier that I don’t have to make an offer of proof. I don’t have to say, now, Mr. Chesley in Cincinnati asked the following lousy questions for 14 days of somebody. I don’t have to do that. I have no obligation to do that, Your Honor, so the answer flat out is no, I didn’t do it, and I’d never do it in the future. I’ve never done it in the past, I’ve never had to do it in the past, and I hope I never have to do it in the future. That’s my answer. Does it answer ...
THE COURT: Well, I think you’re misperceiving my approach in trying ...
COUNSEL: I only have seven minutes Your Honor, but go ahead ...
THE COURT: You’re misperceiving my inquiry. I’m trying to gather from you and glean from you something to help your position and you’re making it quite difficult for me to understand what it is the showing that was made
COUNSEL: We made a showing in August on the basis of which Judge Bail said you go back there and take the depositions. We made that showing. She went along with us. She so stated. A month or a month and a half later she changed her mind and issued the protective order. A month or a month and a half after that we come in and ask for reconsideration, and she denied it. Flat out.
THE COURT: Was the change of mind period after she had reviewed the five depositions?
COUNSEL: No, because here’s what the record shows was handed to her. This is a transcript of August 19, 1987: “The Court: Are those extra copies that you have available, do you mind if I look at those? Mr. Berry, representing Merrell Dow: Yes I have, Your Honor, with the caution that I did not attach the exhibits. The Court: All right, I’d like to see those, I’d like to review just generally what the areas of inquiry were and satisfy some questions I have about that.” I don’t know what was handed to her. It was never shown to me. It’s not in the record. I have no idea what she reviewed, if she reviewed anything. But this was in August and thereafter on page 23, she says go ahead and take the depositions. This is after whatever was handed to her was looked at by her. Does that answer Your Honor’s question?
THE COURT: Go ahead.
COUNSEL: I don’t mean to be impolite, but I’m agitated. The thing that’s been overlooked, I think, by the Court and the defense here, is the defense has the burden. If the plaintiff wants to take a deposition in Ohio, the plaintiff has an absolute right. If the defense wants to get a protective order, they have the burden of proving all of the grounds for the granting thereof which they did not do in this case by any stretch of the legal judicial imagination they didn’t state any ground for a protective order. They had the burden. We’ve cited the cases. Now the expenses that were talked about — I’ll never understand that as long as I live. If these depositions were so wonderful, swell, beautiful, and great, why did I want to go to the expense of going to Ohio? Why in the world would I run up the additional travel expense, deposition expense, video expense, audio expense, and everything else if I thought *491everything had been beautifully done in the multi-litigation? And I think its extremely important here that none of the Merrell Dow people were called live at the trial. I had nothing to chew on in trial either. Pm denied the opportunity to go to Ohio and then they deny as their option gave them the right as they had to call these people out to Idaho, so the jury never got to see any of these people. And repeated questions today, “Well, weren’t these things asked in the multi-district?” Not one single person in this world ever asked a question about Sally Cos-grove until we began her representation. Not one single word of anybody in Ohio in any multi-district litigation about Sally Cosgrove, the plaintiff in this case. If there’s no familial reason for the loss of her arm, if the mother never ingested anything else except Bendectin and she was not exposed to any toxic substance, why did she get born without an arm? Never ever asked by anyone. And Mr. Carlson [counsel for respondent], I hate to say a few minutes ago in telling you that some state court has granted the type of protective order in a Bendectin case that was not multi-districted, I believe is a total falsehood. I’m aware of no such case, Your Honors. One final thing. A legal scholar described cross-examination as the greatest engine ever invented for the discovery of truth. I think you all know from your experience that you can take a hypothetical case where somebody allegedly is going too fast and one attorney says, “Now, Charlie, weren’t you going too fast on highway so-and-so outside of Boise that night?” “Oh no, I wasn’t going too fast.” Another attorney: “Charlie, you were going too fast that night, and you know it, don’t you?” “Yes, sir, but that wasn’t the cause of the injury.” Thank you, Your Honors.
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Harney.
In what may perhaps become the signature of this Court, the requisite number of votes were mustered in order to reconsider an opinion, yet the opinion remains practically the same after a second look. I could not agree with the majority’s first opinion, and I cannot agree with its second opinion following the rehearing. No one in the majority has tendered any response to seriously urged dissenting views, which to my mind does a disservice to a trial bar which might desire to be enlightened as to the majority’s perceived fallacies in another point of view, especially when the majority has ample time to do so after a reargument.