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Cornerstone Hospital v. Marner (CA2 12/7/12)

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We sympathize with the judges of CA2, condemned to a life almost entirely devoted to criminal cases (about 80% – and the remainder include domestic relations and other cases many of us wouldn’t quite consider civil). But this was a bit of a stretch.

Plaintiff sued under the Adult Protective Services Act (46-451 et seq.) for the death of his wife. One of the defendants was a hospital and so he named an expert (a nurse). The hospital challenged the expert; the trial court ruled that she could testify about some things but not others. But the order also said that 12-2604 (expert witness qualifications in medical malpractice actions) does not apply to APSA cases. Cornerstone took a special action.

The trial court’s order specifically ruled that the nurse was qualified even if 2604 applied. That was the effective part of the ruling. The hospital’s argument was that the court let her talk about too much. Whether the statute applied was an inessential part of an evidentiary ruling.

So the Court of Appeals decides that this is the case on which to address the issue.

Why? Why bother to take this special action? The court gives three “compelling reasons.”

First, “the challenged ruling is interlocutory in nature” so “there is no direct review . . . by appeal.” And here we thought that was merely a prerequisite to a special action. Silly us; now we know that every special action contains at least one “compelling reason” to accept it.

Second, whether the statute applies is question of law. True enough. And that’s a reason to accept a special action. But, again, since when is it a “compelling” reason?

Third, it is a question of “first impression and statewide importance.” And that’s the key. The court apparently took this special action because it wanted to. It reached out to grab an issue not because there was any real need to but because the issue piqued its interest.

The court concludes, after a workmanlike but hardly outstanding analysis, that 2604 applies to APSA claims against health care providers.

And so it grants relief? Nope; the opinion tells us that even before it begins its statutory analysis. RNs can testify, the court confirms, as to other RNs but also as to LPNs and nursing assistants The fact that they are separately licensed by the state does not require an expert licensed in each specialty. LPNs and CNAs are subordinate to RNs and have more limited skills. The court set the proper bounds on the nurse’s testimony.

So much for that “compelling” 2604 issue.

(link to opinion)

Sullivan v. Pulte (CA1 12/4/12)

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THE ECONOMIC-LOSS PORTION OF THIS OPINION HAS BEEN VACATED

This case against a homebuilder is interesting for a few reasons but mainly for its new wrinkle on the economic-loss doctrine.

The Sullivans bought a house with a defective retaining wall. The sued – for breach of implied warranties of workmanship and habitability, negligence,  fraud, and consumer fraud – the original builder rather than their seller, the first purchaser. Pulte removed the case and then moved to dismiss, to which motion the Sullivans responded. The District Court remanded. The Superior Court then dismissed based on the pleadings filed in federal court. The Sullivans appeal.

The argue firstly that dismissal based on federal pleadings violates due process and equal protection. The Court of Appeals disagrees; pleadings filed in federal court become part of the state record on remand.

The opinion first addresses the implied-warranty claims.

Pulte’s motion was based on the statute of repose (A.R.S. 12-552). (Pulte built the house in 2000; the Sullivans sued in 2010.) The opinion spends 2 1/2 pages deciding that it applies to implied warranty claims, though the statute says so specifically and it isn’t clear that the Sullivans argued about that.

The Sullivans did argue that the statute was unconstitutional, making an abrogation argument. But “the anti-abrogation clause does not apply to common-law contract claims,” applying instead to “tort claimants”; this cites the Samaritan case from 1998. And an implied warranty claim, despite an absence of privity, is a contract claim, citing various Arizona Supreme court cases.

The Sullivans also argued equitable tolling. But our Supreme Court has already held (Albano 2011) that that doctrine does not apply to this statute. “[T]o apply equitable tolling here would allow a judge-made doctrine to trump the statutory language reflecting the clear intent of the legislature.”

On the tort claims, Pulte argued the economic-loss doctrine. Both sides cited Flagstaff Affordable Housing. If you’ve read that case you probably think that it doesn’t allow recovery here. This opinion, citing Flagstaff, decides that it does. why? Because even though Arizona law allows the Sulllivans to sue Pulte on implied warranty without privity, and even though that sounds in contract, the Sullivans weren’t actually “contracting parties” – with Pulte, at least – and so didn’t have the “opportunity to negotiate with Pulte to allocate the risk of future losses (as if anybody has the opportunity to negotiate with a mass builder), therefore even though they’re protected by contract law they’re not really protected by contract law and so people not in privity with the builder should have more rights against it than those who were. We’d have said that the court’s quotations from Flagstaff just as well support the opposite view but maybe that’s just us. (In a footnote the court specifically recognizes the weirdness of a more-rights-without-privity situation but blames it on Flagstaff.)

Regarding consumer fraud, the court concludes, by construing its language, that the statute (A.R.S. 4401521ff) does not apply to subsequent purchasers. Similarly, it briefly concludes that fraudulent concealment applies only to the parties to the original transaction.

The trial court had awarded Pulte its attorney fees. The Court of Appeals does not merely reverse that award but concludes that it was wrong in the first place because these implied warranties are implied-in-law (and 12-341.01 applies to implied-in-fact). This cites North Peak (2011), which involved an architect’s warranty, which even that case said was different from the merchantability/habitability warranty but apparently not enough different in not quite the same way, or something.

So the court affirms dismissal of the warranty, fraud, and consumer fraud claims but reverses on the tort claims. It denies fees on appeal but awards the Sullivans’ costs.

link to opinion)

Wells Fargo Bank v. Allen (CA1 12/4/12)

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We think the Court of Appeals is probably correct to imply that this plaintiff was planning on default judgment and, when that didn’t happen, didn’t quite know what to do. The court takes the opportunity to say some things about how summary judgment works.

Wells Fargo sued to collect a credit-card debt. It attached to the Complaint the card agreement and the last bill; collections lawyers tend to do things that way, more because that’s the way these things are traditionally done than because they’ve thought about why they’re doing it. But defendants answered and disputed the documents. Wells Fargo moved for summary judgment based on an affidavit by a Wells Fargo paralegal saying basically that he was the custodian of business records, he had reviewed them, and they say that the defendants owed the money. The affidavit didn’t include the documents. Defendants’ Response argued that it was hearsay. The Reply, in addition to presenting – without further affidavit – some business records, argued that the defendants had “failed to satisfy their burden to . . . disclose or put forth . . . evidence to defeat summary judgment.”

The trial court granted the motion. Defendants moved for reconsideration, arguing that there was a question of fact about the applicability of the documents attached to the Complaint (which may have thrown the trial court off the track a bit since this wasn’t really the dispositive issue). The court ordered Wells Fargo to respond; the response tried to explain why the documents had been presented – which evidently it hadn’t done before. The trial court denied the motion for reconsideration.

If you can’t anticipate that it gets reversed then you need to study this opinion and learn its morals.

Moral #1 is that “it is the party moving for summary judgment who bears the ‘burden of persuasion,” which burden “never shifts to the non-moving party.” So, “the question presented by Wells Fargo’s motion . . . was not whether the [defendants] had succeeded in
presenting genuine disputes of material fact –- it was whether Wells Fargo had presented sufficient undisputed admissible evidence to establish its entitlement to judgment.”

Moral #2: “The purpose of a custodian’s affidavit is to authenticate evidence.” We don’t know what’s hard about that but the mistake here – trying to squeeze substantive evidence as well as authentication into a custodian’s affidavit – is not uncommon. “Conclusory affidavits . . . may be sufficient in the default context” but not when you have to prove a disputed case.

Moral #3: Be careful in preparing the custodian’s affidavit. This one didn’t attach the records (“such an affidavit is of little value when it does not attach the evidence at issue”) and fouled up the business-records language by not describing how they were prepared and kept. You need to include all the 803(6) stuff.

Moral #4: Your Reply is too late. ‘It was improper to introduce new evidence with the Reply memorandum.”

None of this is new. But too many people need to be reminded of it.

(link to opinion)