Author Archives: unknown

Clusiau v. Clusiau Enterprises (CA1 7/8/10)

Posted on by

This opinion concerns the preclusive effect of a small-claims judgment.

Clusiau’s uncle arranged to have his company, Clusiau Enterprises (CEI), make monthly payments of $350 to her for life. When CEI stopped paying she sued it for breach of contract in the small claims division of the Justice Court. Neither party had counsel. Clusiau won. Apparently, she collected that judgment but then CEI stopped paying again. She sued again (and the case moved to Superior Court because of a counterclaim not at issue on appeal). Clusiau argued that CEI was collaterally estopped by the first judgment. The trial court agreed and gave her summary judgment on liability.

The question on appeal was whether in the first case CEI had a “full and fair opportunity and motive to litigate the issue.” If it did, collateral estoppel would apply. Restatement (Second) of Judgments §28 says that the lack of a right to appeal, “differences in the quality or extensiveness of the procedures followed in the two courts,” and jurisdictional issues can be factors in this.

The opinion holds that the first judgment did not collaterally estop CEI. It reviews the reasons why small-claims courts are not like others: there is no appeal; there is no jury; hearing officers need have only minimal qualifications; there are no attorneys or motions, nor any discovery; the rules of procedure and evidence don’t apply.

In addition, the small claims division had jurisdiction over only seven month’s worth of Clusiau’s payments; to give its judgment preclusive effect would effectively expand its jurisdiction.

Clusiau argued that CEI could have hired a lawyer in the first case and moved out of small claims. But the court says that a litigant should not have to do that simply because more or bigger claims might be filed later.

A footnote mentions that this opinion applies only to small-claims cases won by the plaintiff; the issues may be different if the plaintiff loses.

This may sound like a no-brainer but the issue was the subject of some major bickering when the ALI was considering the present Restatement of Judgments. The Reporter originally didn’t think – nor did many of the law professors who make up the ALI – that, other than the lack of a right to appeal, the circumstances of the first case should make much difference. They gave some ground on that but the illustrations, cited in this opinion, mostly reflect their views: a court with a $500 jurisdictional limit and no rules shouldn’t have preclusive effect but a property-damage judgment in a $2000 court with “substantially” standard rules can – even on an unrelated, multimillion-dollar, personal-injury case. The real-world decisions that real-world clients have to make in real-world cases are generally not things that the folks in the ivory towers care to spend much time knowing or thinking about.

(link to opinion)

Johnson v. State of Arizona (7/8/10)

Posted on by

This vacates a Court of Appeals opinion we blogged here. The Supreme Court agrees with the result and most of the reasoning but has some different thing to say about the admissibility of remedial measures under Rule 407.

Johnson’s husband, driving on Highway 60, was killed when he hit a truck near an intersection. After the accident the State coincidentally put up a warning sign; it didn’t know there had been an accident. Johnson wanted to present evidence of this at trial. She argued that remedial measures – to be truly “remedial” and therefore excluded by the rule – must be made in response to a specific event. She also argued that the evidence was admissible under the “other purpose” exception in the rule. The trial court disagreed. She lost at trial and appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

The Supreme Court agrees that Rule 407 does not expressly, nor does the word “remedial” impliedly, require knowledge of an accident. And requiring knowledge could discourage people from improving risks that might have caused accidents they didn’t know about.

As to the “another purpose” argument, Johnson’s other purpose was to rebut the State’s claims that there was nothing wrong with the intersection and that the decedent was negligent. But the “mere fact that a defendant denies fault and alleges comparative negligence does not, alone, justify the admission of subsequent measure evidence for impeachment purposes.”

Remedial-measures evidence can come in, however, to rebut evidence “that, if left uncontroverted, would create an unfair advantage or misleading impression for the other party who seeks to exclude any evidence of subsequent measures.” So, for example, it would have been admissible had the State claimed that signs couldn’t be put in, or that the roadway was as safe as it could possibly be, etc. But the State hadn’t said that. Allowing evidence of the signage would not have impeached impeached anything it did say except its basic position that the roadway was reasonably safe – and the latter is what the rule prevents.

The Court of Appeals had indicated that the “another purpose” exception doesn’t apply if other evidence, not barred by 407, is available to serve the same purpose. The Supreme Court, in a footnote, rejects this but adds that the remedial-measure evidence could then be excluded under Rule 403 instead.

On the knowledge issue, the Supreme Court avoids some analytical confusions in the Court of Appeals’ opinion but the take-away is not much different. The “unfair or misleading” exception to Rule 407 is a new wrinkle, though.

Stylistically, we applaud the court’s decision to mention the standard of review briefly and where necessary (although we would still argue that it isn’t really necessary) rather than in a boilerplate paragraph. The statement of jurisdiction, though even less necessary, is at least brief. This is not at all a bad opinion coming from a Justice whose prose style has not historically been his strong point.

 

(link to opinion)

Roberts v. City of Phoenix (CA1 7/2/10)

Posted on by

This a factually complicated situation that we can simplify quite a bit without missing anything legally important. The important parts come at the end, where the court talks about when and against whom fees can be awarded, and how they can be calculated, as a sanction for discovery violations.

After the police stopped Roberts he made a §1983 claim, alleging basically that they hassled him because he was gay. At trial the court granted the City JMOL.

Before trial Roberts had tried to get one of the officers’ personnel files but the trial court, after reviewing it in camera, refused to compel its production. After trial Roberts discovered that there had been prior complaints against the officer for harassing gays, so he moved to set aside the judgment on the basis of newly-discovered evidence. The court reviewed the documents – again, apparently – and granted the motion. The City appealed, the Court of Appeals affirmed, and the matter headed for new trial.

The ensuing, renewed fight over the personnel file takes the court nine pages to describe. Basically, the City made repeated but incomplete productions, there were charges of “purged” files, the City kept blaming things on inadequate systems and innocent confusion,  and it didn’t help itself by having people repeatedly swear up and down that it had produced everything only to discover more things it hadn’t produced yet. It also didn’t help that during this Roberts was incapacitated in a motorcycle accident and wouldn’t have been able to participate at the second trial. The judge finally struck the City’s answer, awarding Roberts a little bit in damages and over a quarter of a million in attorneys fees. The City appealed.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision to strike the Answer, as of course it was going to do after recounting the City’s sins at such length. Nothing of real precedential value here, except as an example that pleadings may indeed be stricken if things are bad enough.

On the fee issue, the City argued that §§1983/1988 do not allow a fee award when the plaintiff does not succeed on the merits or receives only minimal damages. The trial court also cited Rule 37(c) but referred to a “loadstar” method to figure fees, which is done under §1988. This opinion holds, however, that “loadstar” fees can be awarded under Rule 37(c) as well. The method of calculating the award, the court says, is within the sound discretion of the trial court. (The opinion briefly describes the court’s fee calculation; it isn’t evident how or whether she used a loadstar.)

The court points out that while the damages might have been minimal they were not nominal, that the two are substantively different, and that even if they were nominal Roberts was still the prevailing party.

The City argued that fees were inappropriate because the merits were not “actually litigated.” But it relied on a case the involved a stipulated dismissal, which the court distinguished because this dismissal was a sanction for repeated, continuing discovery violations, and the judgment was entered after a hearing on the damages. The court therefore concludes that judgment was on the merits. (We can’t help feeling that this argument would have sounded better to a court if the City hadn’t had so much else going against it. However richly merited the judgment was, it wasn’t on the merits.)

Roberts, by cross-appeal, argued that his attorneys fees should be awarded against City’s lawyers as well as against the City. The trial court’s refusal to do so did not abuse her discretion, as she indicated that the problem was the City’s fault rather than counsels’ fault.

(link to opinion)