The issue here is whether improper ex parte communication requires a new trial.

It is equally tragic and routine that when an elderly member of a large family goes down for the count the vultures start circling and then start squabbling, usually along pre-existing family fault lines. After Mrs. Long had a stroke and was put in a nursing home her three sisters and her niece joined battle. The details of this guardianship saga (which lasted for years and, you guessed it, helped use up the assets of the estate) are almost completely irrelevant to the holding, so Division One describes them at length.

The commissioner in charge of the case held a hearing to review some contested fee requests. Before the ruling – which exonerated the niece and hit the sisters pretty hard – was issued her JA emailed it to lawyers on the niece’s side but not the sisters.’ One of the lawyers who got it recommended – and the court made – changes to correct a couple of factual mistakes. It later turned out that the commissioner’s office had been in email contact with one side several times, though these emails, according to the opinion, “concerned only non-substantive administrative procedure and scheduling issues.”

The sisters moved for new trial, alleging improper ex parte contact. A judge appointed to hear the matter denied it on most issues, ruling that while the emails created a perception of bias they concerned matters immaterial or merely administrative and did not influence the substance of the commissioner’s ruling.

The sisters appealed, arguing that appearance of bias or prejudice requires a new trial. But the Court of Appeals affirms, holding that the judge was within his discretion not to order one. Both parties cited McElhanon (1986) “as the seminal Arizona case regarding the effect of ex parte communications on the right to a fair trial.” Appearance requires reversal if the judge is so personally involved that there is seeming personal favoritism and it prejudiced the result. (We’ve paraphrased that a bit, see paragraph 28 for the quote, which comes from other cases; be warned, though, that it doesn’t make much more sense there than here.) The sisters apparently had a hard time explaining how the emails actually changed the commissioner’s ruling. And nothing in them discussed the substance of the case or suggested actual prejudice. So this opinion agrees that the appearance of impropriety did not rise to the level of requiring new trial.

The court agrees that the emails were wrong and chides the commissioner, her JA, and one of the lawyers. They are blameworthy (though we will assume that they only made mistakes) but that focus loses the forest for the trees. Anybody who thinks that what happened in this case is unique to it or to the commissioners’ courts should remove head from sand. To expect bureaucrats who have never represented anyone to act by the rules of professionals simply because many of them are nice boys and girls who hope to become professionals eventually is unrealistic. You can write as many quasi-professional rules for them as you please; bureaucrats act like bureaucrats. When court personnel don’t like your client (usually because of signals, conscious or otherwise, from their judge) then you can struggle the whole case to get things done that are usually easy and automatic. Yes, the judges/commissioners should police this but you know that many won’t bother and some won’t care. The current practice of encouraging communication with JAs, relying on elaborate rules about what they can and cannot say, is a product of a mindset that values the efficient administration of the courts more than their just administration.

While we’re in this odd, for us, mood of judge- and bureaucrat-bashing we’ll mention that this commissioner retired before her ruling and then issued it, months later, as a pro tem. We wonder if she got paid. We’re pro tems and we don’t. But since retired judges are masters of the art of double-dipping, benefitting from the eager cooperation of those who will retire themselves some day, the question does arise.

Those of you who’ve read this opinion will be waiting for us to mention the footnotes. Seventeen of them. Classic Division One footnotes – nothing that shouldn’t either be omitted or included in the main text.

(link to opinion)

This case discusses the extent of the family purpose doctrine.

Fuller caused an auto accident that injured Alosi. She was in the course and scope of Hewitt’s business. Fuller sued her and the business but when he found out that Fuller and Hewitt lived together he tried to amend his Complaint to allege family purpose and respondeat superior against Hewitt personally. The trial court didn’t allow the first allegation and allowed the second but then granted Hewitt summary judgment on it. Alosi appealed.

The opinion reviews or alludes to various family-purpose cases and finds that none have extended the doctrine to spouses, as opposed to children (including young but adult children) with the exception of Mortenson (1956). But that case was based on the old notion of “the husband’s dominance in the management and control of the common property.” As a policy, family purpose is to protect against child drivers, not to create liability because one partner has more money than another or because of how they feel about each other.

The court specifically does not base its holding on the fact that Fuller and Hewitt were not married (“we reach this conclusion not because of any rigid definition of ‘family.’”)

(As to respondeat superior the court holds for factual reasons that summary judgment was correct.)

A concurring judge thinks that family purpose can extend to anyone in the house of any age if there was a head of the house who controlled the use of the car. He concurs because that wasn’t the case here, Fuller had her own keys and didn’t need permission to use it.

(link to opinion)

A case about the allowable extent of punitive damages.

Metropolitan, Nardelli’s auto insurer, refused to total his damaged car, instead paying him for repairs. He sued for bad faith; the jury awarded $155,000 compensatory damage and $55 million in punitives. The trial court reduced the punitive award to 4:1, viz., $620,000. Metropolitan appealed liability and damages.

About two-thirds of this 61-page opinion rehashes the facts to conclude that there was enough evidence to send bad-faith and punitive damages to the jury. Punitives were apparently based on a company policy of being hard on claims to boost profits and adjuster’s incomes.

But the Court of Appeals reduces the punitive award to 1:1 – $155,000.  It analyzes the factors (“guideposts” is the current euphemism; even the courts are beginning to feel guilty about factors) from the U.S. Supreme Court case of State Farm v. Campbell.

“Reprehensibility” is the first one; the court feels that Metropolitans’ conduct on that score was “low to . . . middle range.” 

The ratio is the second factor (oops, sorry; “guidepost”). This court had said in Pope (2008) that 4:1 was close to the constitutional line. But this opinion says that this evidence doesn’t support even that, for reasons the court does not really explain. The fact that compensatory damages were “substantial” ($155,000 for the repair/replacement of a $35,000 Ford Explorer) had something to do with it. 

The third guidepost is the difference between the punitive award and analogous civil penalties. Unfair claims settlement practice penalties are capped at $50,000 every six months. The court then says that other cases that awarded big punitives aren’t like this one. What that has to do with this factor guidepost isn’t clear.

The dissent argues that punitives shouldn’t have gone to the jury since Metropolitan’s actions, though not good, were not malicious or outrageous. Judge Swann basically makes the points that profit motive is not evil and that you shouldn’t turn every repair-or-replace argument into a punitive case.

The majority sheds some crocodile tears over the stress of being a “gatekeeper.” But why don’t we tell the truth? On punitives an appellate court is not just the gatekeeper but the judge, jury, and executioner. Normal judges, juries, and even executioners can live with themselves because they act under the dictates and constraints of a system of law. The stress, if these folks really feel any, comes from knowing that you’re doing these things based on nothing but “factors” some court has pulled out of thin air and that you’re using to justify your emotions about the case.

(link to opinion)