Court Opinion

ID: 9909130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-12 17:04:05.699177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:07.229455
License: Public Domain

FILED
                                                                       Dec 12 2023, 8:52 am

                                                                            CLERK
                                                                        Indiana Supreme Court
                                                                           Court of Appeals
                                                                             and Tax Court

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT                                    ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Bryan H. Babb                                             JESSICA A. SMILEY
Bose McKinney & Evans LLP                                 Matthew J. Trainor
Indianapolis, Indiana                                     Indianapolis, Indiana
                                                          ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
                                                          PROGRESSIVE SOUTHEASTERN
                                                          INSURANCE COMPANY
                                                          James W. Hehner
                                                          Matthew E. Hobson
                                                          Clendening Johnson & Bohrer,
                                                          P.C.
                                                          Indianapolis, Indiana

                                            IN THE
    COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Charles Jennings,                                         December 12, 2023
Appellant-Plaintiff,                                      Court of Appeals Case No.
                                                          23A-CT-303
        v.                                                Appeal from the Hamilton
                                                          Superior Court
Jessica A. Smiley and                                     The Honorable Michael A. Casati,
Progressive Southeastern                                  Judge
Insurance Company,                                        Trial Court Cause No.
Appellees-Defendants.                                     29D01-2002-CT-1487

                                Opinion by Judge Bradford
                              Judges Brown and Vaidik concur.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023                            Page 1 of 8
      Bradford, Judge.

      Case Summary
[1]   As Jessica Smiley was driving down Westfield Boulevard in Carmel, she struck

      and injured Charles Jennings, who was walking across the street. When the

      case proceeded to discovery, Jennings moved to compel a cellular telephone

      inspection to determine whether Smiley’s telephone had been running the

      Waze application at the time of the incident. Originally, the trial court granted

      Jennings’s motion but reversed itself following Smiley’s petition to reconsider.

      The case proceeded to jury trial, at the conclusion of which the jury found

      Jennings to be ninety percent at fault and Smiley ten percent. Jennings argues

      that the trial court abused its discretion when it disallowed targeted discovery of

      Smiley’s telephone, which he claimed was relevant to his claim that Smiley had

      been distracted while driving at the time of the incident. We affirm.

      Facts and Procedural History
[2]   On the evening of December 19, 2019, Smiley was driving her vehicle

      northbound on Westfield Boulevard near Wood Valley Drive in Carmel when

      she struck Jennings, who was walking across Westfield Boulevard. According

      to Smiley, she had been unable to see Jennings crossing the road because he

      had stepped out from behind a box truck, which had blocked her view.

[3]   In February of 2020, Jennings sued Smiley, claiming that she had been

      negligent when she had failed to use due care while driving, maintain a proper
      Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023      Page 2 of 8
      lookout, yield the right of way to pedestrians, and control her vehicle to avoid

      striking a pedestrian. In answering the complaint, Smiley asserted that

      Jennings had been contributorily negligent. In February of 2021, Jennings

      requested production of Smiley’s telephone for inspection. In March of 2021,

      Jennings moved to compel discovery of Smiley’s cellular-telephone data to

      determine whether Waze, a navigation application, had been running at the

      time of the incident.

[4]   In his motion to compel, Jennings explained that Verizon had already produced

      information for Smiley’s “talk activity” but that the inspection would serve a

      different purpose—one of examining the telephone’s data usage. Appellant’s

      App. Vol. II p. 39. Jennings explained that this request had arisen out of two

      events. First, while Smiley’s vehicle’s black box “did not evidence a recordable

      event[,] the [accident] reconstructionist generated a report which concluded”

      that “Smiley was inattentive and/or distracted as she operated her Honda

      Accord northbound on Westfield Blvd approaching Carmel Park. Mr. Jennings

      would have been visible to Ms. Smiley if she were safely operating her

      vehicle[.]” Appellant’s App. Vol. II pp. 30–31. Second, Smiley had testified in

      a deposition that she had been using Waze when she had begun her drive that

      day but claimed that she had not had the application on when she was driving.

      At the hearing on Jennings’s motion to compel, Smily argued that production

      of the telephone would be a “really intrusive endeavor” and that Jennings had

      other methods available to gather the same information. Tr. Vol. II p. 7. The

      trial court granted Jennings’s motion to compel.

      Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023      Page 3 of 8
[5]   On August 20, 2021, Smiley petitioned the trial court to reconsider its ruling on

      Jennings’s motion due to privacy concerns. That September, the trial court

      issued an order on Smiley’s petition, in which it denied Jennings’s motion to

      compel because “it had drastically misconstrued a crucial piece of evidence

      which was central to its decision to grant [Jennings]’s motion.” Appellant’s

      App. Vol. II p. 61.

[6]   In January of 2023, the trial court conducted a jury trial. At trial, the

      investigating officers testified that Jennings had not crossed “at an intersection”;

      there was no crosswalk; no yield, stop, or pedestrian-crossing signs; and the

      accident had occurred at rush hour on a busy road. Tr. Vol. II p. 135. The

      officers testified that they had found no evidence that Smiley had been

      distracted, driving recklessly, or speeding. Additionally, Smiley testified that

      she had not seen Jennings crossing the street before impact because he had

      stepped out from behind a large truck. Jennings also acknowledged that he had

      had to wait to cross the street due to the truck. Moreover, two witnesses in the

      vehicle immediately behind Smiley’s vehicle testified that they had noticed no

      signs of distraction or anything out of the ordinary with Smiley’s driving.

      Further, Jennings’s accident-reconstruction expert, Joseph Stidham, admitted

      that Smiley could not have seen Jennings before the oncoming truck had passed

      him because she would have been too far down the road. Stidham testified that

      it would have taken Smiley 165 to 191 feet, or between 4.6 to 5.5 seconds, to

      detect Jennings and apply the brake to avoid hitting him.

      Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023        Page 4 of 8
[7]   The jury determined that Jennings had been ninety percent at fault and Smiley

      had been ten percent. As a result of Jennings’s being more than fifty percent at

      fault, the trial court entered judgment in favor of Smiley. 1

      Discussion and Decision
[8]   Trial courts enjoy “broad discretion on issues of discovery”; therefore, “we

      review discovery rulings—such as rulings on motions to compel—for an abuse

      of that discretion.” Minges v. State, 192 N.E.3d 893, 896 (Ind. 2022). A trial

      court abuses its discretion when it makes a decision that is clearly against the

      logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before it. Pickett v. State, 83

      N.E.3d 717, 719 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017). Further, “the Indiana Trial Rules are

      designed to allow liberal discovery.” Beville v. State, 71 N.E.3d 13, 18 (Ind.

      2017).

[9]   Jennings argues that the trial court’s refusal to allow the telephone inspection

      constitutes reversible error.2 We disagree. As Smiley notes, Trial Rule 26(B)(1)

      1
        Pursuant to Indiana Code section 31-51-2-6(a), “[i]n an action based on fault that is brought against [] one
      (1) defendant[,] the claimant is barred from recovery if the claimant’s contributory fault is greater than the
      fault of all persons whose fault proximately contributed to the claimant’s damages.”
      2
        Shortly before trial, Smiley filed a motion in limine asking the trial court to prohibit any mention of (1)
      Smiley’s objection to producing her telephone for inspection or (2) the court’s order denying Jennings’s
      request to inspect it, which the trial court granted. On appeal, Jennings contests how this order in limine was
      enforced during trial. However, he makes clear that he is not raising this as an “independent issue.”
      Appellant’s Reply Br. p. 23. Rather, he asserts that if we find the trial court abused its discretion by denying
      the requested discovery, we should also find that he was prejudiced by that error, in part because of the
      enforcement of the order in limine. See Appellant’s Reply Br. p. 24 (“The core reversible error in the case is
      prohibiting Jennings from inspecting the phone, which is a pre-trial exclusion of relevant, non-cumulative
      evidence. The consequential enforcement of that ruling during trial (by enforcing a related, pre-trial motion

      Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023                                 Page 5 of 8
       allows trial courts to limit the scope and methods of discovery if it determines

       that

                (i) the discovery sought is unreasonably cumulative or
                duplicative, or is obtainable from some other source that is more
                convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive; (ii) the party
                seeking discovery has had ample opportunity by discovery in the
                action to obtain the information sought or; (iii) the burden or
                expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit,
                taking into account the needs of the case, the amount in
                controversy, the parties’ resources, the importance of the issues at
                stake in the litigation, and the importance of the proposed
                discovery in resolving the issues.

[10]   Based on the record before us, we conclude that the burden of Jennings’s

       proposed telephone inspection outweighs its likely benefit in light of Smiley’s

       significant privacy concerns. We have previously noted that “[s]earching the

       data of a modern cell phone is intrusive”; therefore, to justify such an intrusive

       search, Jennings would have to provide strong indicators that Smiley had been

       using her cellular telephone at the time of the incident. Brown v. Eaton, 164

       N.E.3d 153, 166 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021), trans. denied. Here, the record merely

       shows that Smiley claimed she had used Waze earlier in the day, Jennings’s

       expert testified that Smiley had been distracted, and percipient witnesses and

       investigating officers testified that Smiley had not appeared to be distracted.

       After weighing Smiley’s “legitimate privacy concerns and the Court’s error in

       in limine) is what led to the ‘probable impact on [Jennings]’ substantial rights.’”). Because we conclude the
       trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the discovery, we need not address the motion in limine.

       Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023                                Page 6 of 8
       reviewing the evidence from the [motion to compel] hearing,” the trial court

       was ultimately persuaded that the burden of the request outweighed the

       potential probative value of the telephone inspection. Appellant’s App. Vol. II

       p. 61. Without sufficient indicators that Smiley was using her cellular

       telephone at the time of the accident, we cannot say that the trial court abused

       its discretion in denying Jennings’s discovery request. See Ind. Trial Rule

       26(B)(1).

[11]   Jennings alleges that this issue is one of first impression in Indiana, and

       consequently directs our attention to Antico v. Sindt Trucking, Inc., 148 So.3d 163

       (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014) to help create a framework to balance discovery

       needs and privacy rights as it relates to cellular telephones. That case, however,

       does not help him. In Antico, “the trial court didn’t allow the inspection simply

       because Respondents made assertions that decedent was on her cellphone, or

       because the decedent happened to possess a cellphone in her car.” Id. at 166.

       Instead, “Respondents supported their motion to inspect the cellphone with

       specific evidence[,]” including

               cell phone records showing that the decedent was texting just
               before the accident; two witnesses indicated that the decedent
               may have used her cell phone at the time of the accident; and
               troopers responding to the accident lent support to the conclusion
               that the decedent was using her cell phone when the accident
               occurred.

       Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023          Page 7 of 8
       Id. at 166–67. In other words, the evidence in Antico, unlike the evidence in this

       case, strongly indicated that the decedent had been using her cellular telephone

       at the time of the accident, therefore justifying a cellular-telephone inspection.

[12]   Moreover, we are confident that the Indiana trial rules sufficiently address this

       issue. Similar to the Florida rule cited by Jennings, Trial Rule 26(B) entrusts

       the trial court with the discretion to limit discovery in accordance with these

       rules “by order of the court[.]” Ind. Trial Rule 26(B). We conclude that

       turning to persuasive authority to craft a framework for such discovery requests

       is unnecessary. In short, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion

       in denying Jennings’s motion to compel. See Minges, 192 N.E.3d at 896.

[13]   The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

       Vaidik, J., and Brown, J., concur.

       Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 23A-CT-303 | December 12, 2023       Page 8 of 8