This adds nothing to the law. But the courts need to publish one of these every once in a while to reassure trial judges and to teach/remind/scare lawyers.

Gamboa’s lawyer fouled up his witness scheduling, even after various discussions and agreements about it with defense counsel and the court. As a result, come 5:00 or so on the last day of the evidence he had only been cross-examining the defense expert for 43 minutes when the court stopped him. He objected but didn’t seek to have the witness return the next day and didn’t make an offer of proof of what he expected to show. The jury gave him a lot of money but gave the defendant only 10% of the fault, so he appealed.

After reciting the facts, the court’s entire legal analysis is, quite appropriately, “the court did not abuse its broad discretion.”

Well, not quite the entire analysis since without an offer of proof the plaintiff couldn’t show harm even if there had been error.

Plaintiff’s lawyer made noises about “due process”; they always do. But this has happened many times before and the law is clear. The trial judge doesn’t violate anybody’s rights by putting a reasonable limit on you. Its your burden to prove that it wasn’t reasonable. Its a big one. And its an impossible one unless you make a record.

And, by the way, if you haven’t made all your main points on cross within 43 minutes, fuggedaboudit.

A minor prejudgment-interest opinion that needed more editing.

In 1994 a State commission fined the Taylors for controlling pests without a pest-control license. They didn’t pay. In 2007 the State filed suit to convert the commission’s order into a judgment. The trial court did so but refused to award prejudgment interest. This opinion affirms.

The State cited A.R.S. §44-1201(A): prejudgment interest “on any loan, indebtedness, judgment or other obligation.” The State argued that the commission order was an indebtedness or other obligation. The opinion discusses in detail several different definitions of “indebtedness” and “obligation.” Nothing in the definitions really suggests that the commission’s order wasn’t one or the other, if not both.

But then the opinion suddenly veers in a different direction, revealing that that’s not the issue after all. The issue is statutory construction, all right, but not of the statute that it just spent a few pages construing.

Penalties don’t bear prejudgment interest at common law. Some statutes providing for administrative penalties specifically allow it. The statute that the Taylors were penalized under doesn’t. And so, under classic principles of construction that the opinion doesn’t quite mention, the legislature didn’t intend it to.

The court’s approach to this is a bit meandering and backhanded but ends up in the same place. The opinion would be less ungainly if the the second part of the analysis were first and the first second (or omitted altogether; the court apparently thinks it logically necessary but it isn’t).

You think blogging cases is fun? Here’s the first sentence of this one: “We address in this opinion, among other issues, what the term “interruption of business, whether total or partial” means in this contract of insurance.” And the bottom of the screen says that the slip opinion is 47 pages long. Sigh.

Aztar owned the Tropicana in Atlantic City. It built an expansion next door; during construction, part of the new building collapsed. The rest of the resort was not damaged but the accident delayed the completion of the expansion and caused the state to close temporarily a road and other access-ways, both resulting in a loss of business. Aztar made a claim under its business-interruption coverage.

Fortunately, that’s almost all that’s interesting about this opinion. As you know from reading our FAQ (you have, right?) we only cover the interesting stuff. If business interruption is your thing, or if you’re a masochist, you can follow the court as it analyzes each policy word with a microscope, tells us how barrels are made, fantasizes about cows and ice cream, and concludes that the trial court was partially right for the wrong reason and partial wrong for the right reason. Or something.

Yes, this thing is, whether right or wrong, a mess.

The only interesting question is: what does this suit by a Delaware corporation against national and international insurers arising out of a New Jersey accident have to do with Arizona? The opinion doesn’t explain that to us. It does wonder why Arizona law applies; turns out that the parties never explained that to anyone.