Court Opinion

ID: 9856562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:50:31.29803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:22.125410
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting from the majority opinion, and concurring in the opinion of Justice TROUT:
On March 3, 1992, the Court was then comprised of five sitting justices, all of whom participated in the opinions issued in the above-captioned case, Hopkins v. Duo-Fast. Justice McDevitt authored the opinion for the Court, and that opinion was joined only by Chief Justice Bakes and Justice Johnson. Justices Bistline and Boyle both dissented and wrote separate opinions. Justice Bistline, in addition to his own expressed views, fully joined the opinion of Justice Boyle. Justice Boyle has since accepted a position in the federal judiciary and therefore is no longer participating.
In June of 1992, the Hopkins’ petition for rehearing was granted. On September 15, 1992, the Court heard the reargument of the parties, and the controversy was taken under consideration, which so continues. The order granting a rehearing was just *214that, and nothing more. Such an order does not displace the opinions which had been written and culminated in the opinion for the Court, a point to be kept in mind. When a new opinion emanates from the Court, which is a majority opinion, as history evidences, it supplants the previous majority opinion, and on issuance this Court ordinarily states in plain language that any earlier contrary opinion is withdrawn, hence functus officio. Portions thereof may surface in the substituted opinions.
Having made that clear, and because of my having joined the previous dissenting opinion authored by Justice Boyle, I now adopt as my own the views therein expressed and attach that joint opinion hereto as Appendix A. In addition, I stand fast on the views which I expressed for myself in my 1992 opinion, which are reiterated herein.
Particular attention should be given to where the district court, the Hon. George D. Carey, Fourth Judicial District, begins the discussion leading to his disposition of the issue concerning the failure of Duo-Fast to supplement its answers to interrogatories:

Mr. Howard, I can understand your problem. Because it is very definitely throwing a new wrinkle into, it seems to me, throwing a new wrinkle into the case. He’s presenting a completely new opinion, even though, yes, you say, Well, he warned vs that he might come up with something new.

But he didn’t bother coming up with something new until, as I understand it, or didn’t tell anybody about it until last night.

And it seems to me, from what I’ve heard at this point, that it’s not because the defendant is sandbagging. And it’s not because the plaintiff has failed to be diligent in pursuing its discovery.

It seems to me that the problem is that the witness didn’t get the work done because of the press of other business.

So I don’t think, from the point of view of looking at, well, did the plaintiff— defendant fail to seasonably supplement his responses to discovery? The answer is no. Using a double negative, no, he didn’t fail to do so because he didn’t know about it.2
And 26(e)(4) says that if a party fails to seasonably supplement his responses, then the court may exclude the testimony.
So I don’t think that there’s a predicate for excluding the testimony at this point. If I felt that, you know, this was a sandbagging situation, I’d rule otherwise.
But I think, at least from what I’ve heard, that Dr. Blotter would testify to as to the reasons why he hadn’t reached that conclusion beforehand.3
I don’t think it comes within — well, I think the appropriate exercise of discretion would be to permit the testimony.4
R. 912-13 (emphasis added).
The trial court was obviously keenly aware of the problem presented by the late discovery but nevertheless ruled against the plaintiffs, who were judicially found to have been diligent in pursuing discovery. Instead, the court favored the tardy defendants. The court showed no consideration of the proposition that the defendant and *215its counsel were under an implied obligation of fairness which required that Dr. Blotter’s further testing, beyond that which had been conducted prior to the taking of his deposition, be both finished and furnished at least far enough in advance of trial so as to allow plaintiffs’ counsel time to consider it and prepare plaintiffs’ expert to make a response. Instead the district court attributed “the problem” wholly to Dr. Blotter’s failure “to get the work done because of the press of other business.” Nothing in the court rules or in the record supports the court in its ruling that Dr. Blotter’s lateness in conducting further testing and reaching new conclusions was excusable “because of the press of other business,” which is pure conjecture. Instead, the court should have placed the onus where it properly belonged, on Duo-Fast and its counsel, for not riding herd on Dr. Blotter. Duo-Fast, however, did not spring its surprise until after plaintiffs had presented their case. Defense counsel in making the belated disclosure to the court and counsel expressed no remorse for having been so remiss in his duties.
It simply is not possible to understand how the Chief Justice less than two years ago in the case of Radmer v. Ford Motor Co., 120 Idaho 86, 813 P.2d 897 (1991), could write the following ratio decidendi and then join the opinion of Justice McDevitt, which ignores Radmer as though it never existed. Radmer states, in pertinent part:
The issue in this case is governed by Rule 26(e) of the Idaho Rules of Civil Procedure. That rule provides in pertinent part:
(1) A party is under a duty seasonably to supplement his response with respect to any question directly addressed to ... (B) the identity of each person expected to be called as a witness at trial and with regard to expert witnesses the subject matter on which he is expected to testify, and the substance of his testimony.
This rule unambiguously imposes a continuing duty to supplement responses to discovery with respect to the substance and subject matter of an expert’s testimony where the initial responses have been rejected, modified, expanded upon, or otherwise altered in some manner. Zolber v. Winters, 109 Idaho 824, 712 P.2d 525 (1986); Wright and Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, Supplementation of Responses § 2048.
In general, Rule 26 of the Idaho rules, like its federal analogue, was designed to promote candor and fairness in the pre-trial discovery process. Speaking with reference to Rule 26(b)(4)(A)(i) of the federal rules, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules which promulgated the original draft of Rule 26 stated:
In cases of this character [involving expert testimony], a prohibition against discovery of information held by expert witnesses produces in acute form the very evils that discovery has been created to prevent. Effective cross-examination of an expert witness requires advance preparation____ Similarly, effective rebuttal advances knowledge of the line of testimony of the other side. If the latter is foreclosed by a rule against discovery, the narrowing of issues and elimination of surprise which discovery normally produces are frustrated.
Advisory Committee Notes, rule 26, Fed. Rules Civ.Proc., 28 U.S.C.A. Further illustrating the critical nature of complete and accurate responses regarding expert witnesses in the discovery process, one scholar notes:
It is fundamental that opportunity be had for full cross-examination, and this cannot be done properly in many cases without resort to pretrial discovery, particularly when expert witnesses are involved____ Before an attorney can even hope to deal on cross-examination with an unfavorable expert opinion he must have some idea of the bases of that opinion and the data relied upon. If the attorney is required to await examination at trial to get this information, he often will have too little time to recognize and expose vulnerable spots in the testimony.
*216Friedenthal, Discovery and Use of an Adverse Party’s Expert Information, 14 Stan.L.Rev. 455, 485 (1962).
Typically, failure to meet the requirements of Rule 26 results in exclusion of the proffered evidence. Coleco Industries, Inc. v. Berman, 567 F.2d 569 (3d Cir.1977). Moreover, while trial courts are given broad discretion in ruling on pretrial discovery matters, reversible error has been found in allowing testimony where Rule 26 has not been complied with. Smith v. Ford Motor Co., 626 F.2d 784 (10th Cir.1980).
Radmer, 120 Idaho at 89, 818 P.2d at 900 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added) (Bakes, C.J. author, Bistline, Johnson, Boyle, and McDevitt, JJ., concurring). This strange affair is made even more incredible because Justice McDevitt was a sitting member of a unanimous Court which issued Radmer.
All of which is to suggest that while there are times when the Court functions as a unit, there are other times, such as now, where the trial bench and bar, and not to the exclusion of the general public, may well conclude that the Court is more interested in sending out opinions than in making that extra effort to release opinions which are soundly thought out and premised on at least on some reasonable degree of consistency, preferably always striving for a result which has an aroma of justice.
APPENDIX A

. In this passage, Judge Carey apparently uses “defendant" as applicable to the corporation Duo-Fast. Duo-Fast appeared before the trial court by and through its retained attorney, Donald J. Farley. It is unclear as to who is the "he." The person in charge of the Duo-Fast defense was Mr. Farley.

. Here the reader is presented with the supposed basis for Judge Carey’s decision, his conclusion exonerating Duo-Fast’s witness, Dr. Blotter, and hence Duo-Fast as well, for not having timely completed the testing which they were to do, and then to timely advise the Hopkins' attorney. Unacceptable is the statement by Judge Carey that "from what I’ve heard, Dr. Blotter would testify as to the reasons why he hadn’t reached that conclusion beforehand." It was a bare conclusion which the record does not support, and hence unsupportable.

.Wholly incomprehensible and unavailable is the means by which Judge Carey arrived at this conclusion. As matters stand, the statement is a conclusion without any substantiation. Trial courts are granted discretion, true, but the parties are entitled to be informed as to the manner and reasoning which enters into the exercise of that discretion. Otherwise, pandemonium may rule.