Amlan, Inc. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., s. 92-2041
| Decision Date | 01 February 1995 |
| Docket Number | 93-1367,Nos. 92-2041,s. 92-2041 |
| Citation | 651 So.2d 701 |
| Parties | 20 Fla. L. Weekly D295 AMLAN, INC., a Florida corporation, and Mulder-Hardenberg, B.V., a foreign corporation, Appellants, v. DETROIT DIESEL CORPORATION, a/k/a Detroit Diesel Allison, a Delaware corporation, Florida Detroit Diesel/Allison, a/k/a Key Power, a Delaware corporation, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert L. Jennings and Robert R. Edwards of Jennings, Valancy & Edwards, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellants.
Douglas J. Chumbley and Wendy F. Lumish of Popham, Haik, Schnobrich & Kaufman, Ltd., Miami, for appellee-Detroit Diesel Corp.
Matt Weinstein, South Miami, for appellee-Florida Detroit Diesel/Allison.
This lawsuit involved claims of breach of contract and fraud arising out of malfunctioning marine engines manufactured by appellees, Detroit Diesel Corporation (Detroit Diesel) and Florida Detroit Diesel/Allison, and installed in appellants' (plaintiffs') custom made luxury yachts. We have sua sponte consolidated the appeal from the final judgment with a collateral appeal arising from a post-trial motion for sanctions in connection with pretrial discovery abuses. We affirm the final judgment in all respects, but write to address one of the points raised on appeal directed to the trial court's evidentiary rulings: the trial court's refusal to allow the jury to hear evidence of appellee Detroit Diesel's pretrial discovery conduct in connection with plaintiffs' liability case.
On the collateral appeal, we address the trial court's jurisdiction to consider the post-trial motion for sanctions against Detroit Diesel related to the same discovery conduct plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought to introduce before the jury. Because this appeal involved issues related to the same discovery conduct involved in the motion for sanctions, the trial court was divested of jurisdiction to consider the motion for sanctions during the pendency of this appeal. However, we do not find that the filing of the motion for sanctions seeking attorney's fees after the entry of the final judgment rendered the motion untimely. Therefore, upon remand, the trial court may properly consider the previously-filed motion for sanctions.
These consolidated appeals arise from alleged discovery abuses following routine discovery requests made after the complaint was filed. Plaintiffs served a request to produce on Detroit Diesel seeking warranty records and the repair history of the same model engine involved in the lawsuit. Detroit Diesel objected, claiming that the request was burdensome and harassing and that compliance was virtually impossible. Specifically, Detroit Diesel stated it would have to hire laborers to search by hand the serial numbers of over 200,000 warranties, generated over a fifteen-year period, to comply with the request.
After much time and expense, including two trips to Michigan to inspect the documents authorized by court order, plaintiffs finally determined that Detroit Diesel maintained a computerized unit history on every engine so that the information originally requested would have been quickly and easily retrievable. Plaintiffs ultimately obtained the documents. At trial, plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought to introduce evidence of Detroit Diesel's pretrial conduct. Specifically, plaintiffs sought to introduce evidence that counsel for Detroit Diesel made misrepresentations to the trial court about the existence and availability of crucial documentation and that Detroit Diesel had hindered plaintiffs' search for records at Detroit Diesel's home office by denying them access to microfilm machines and interfering with plaintiffs' efforts to copy documents.
After entry of the final judgment in favor of Detroit Diesel, plaintiffs moved for attorney's fees based on discovery misconduct. The motion for sanctions details in twelve pages the saga of plaintiffs' thwarted and prolonged discovery efforts, including the two trips made to Michigan headquarters by plaintiffs' attorney and a hired computer specialist. The motion recites a history of the tremendous time wasted and expense incurred by plaintiffs' counsel because of Detroit Diesel's initial claim that was subsequently shown to be unfounded. Not until the trial court entered an order allowing plaintiffs' counsel and a computer specialist to travel to Michigan to search the records themselves did plaintiffs eventually learn that the requested information had been computerized and could be retrieved easily by computer without requiring an intensive manual search. Plaintiffs alleged a deliberate pretrial pattern of stalling and deceit by Detroit Diesel which consumed precious discovery time and hindered examination of the records.
Sanctions are authorized and appropriate where a trial court finds, based on the record before it, that a party has engaged in a pattern designed to thwart discovery evincing a "continuous pattern of willful, contemptuous and contumacious disregard of lawful court orders concerning its obligation to comply with reasonable discovery requests" even if all discovery is ultimately produced and the opposing party is not substantially prejudiced by the delay. AVD Enters., Inc. v. Network Sec. Acceptance Corp., 555 So.2d 401, 402 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989). Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.380 provides a panoply of potential remedies for discovery abuses, from monetary sanctions to striking of all or part of a party's pleadings or defenses. See, e.g., Mercer v. Raine, 443 So.2d 944 (Fla.1983); Continental Casualty Co. v. Morgan, 445 So.2d 678 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984); Watson v. Peskoe, 407 So.2d 954 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1981); Ferrante v. Waters, 383 So.2d 749 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980); AVD Enters.; Agencias Maritimas Nicaraguenses, S.A. v. Usatorres, 435 So.2d 247 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983); Pinakatt v. Mercy Hosp., Inc., 394 So.2d 441 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981).
While sanctions imposed on the offending party in this case would be within the trial court's discretion, depending on the nature and extent of the party's misconduct, the trial court also had discretion to refuse to permit the jury to hear the details of the pretrial discovery process. There had been no prior determination by the trial court that discovery misconduct had taken place. Detroit Diesel disputed any willful obstruction of the discovery process. Given this scenario, the trial court could properly find that the probative value of this collateral evidence might distract the jury from the main issues on liability.
Discovery abuses, like those alleged by plaintiffs to have occurred, should not be tolerated by the judicial system. However, evidence concerning discovery violations during the pretrial process should, in most cases, be evaluated by the trial court which can then impose appropriate sanctions, including sanctions having evidentiary import. Evidence related to the history of pretrial discovery conduct should normally not be a matter submitted for the jury's consideration on the issues of liability. See Emerson Elec. Co. v. Garcia, 623 So.2d 523 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993).
We distinguish cases in which the misconduct alleged is the destruction or unexplained disappearance of crucial evidence. In those cases, an instruction may be given concerning the inference that the withheld or missing evidence would be unfavorable to the party failing to produce the evidence. Also the destruction or unexplained absence of crucial evidence may result in a permissible shifting of the burden of proof. A jury may properly receive evidence and be instructed on the unexplained disappearance of evidence. See, e.g., Public Health Trust of Dade County v. Valcin, 507 So.2d 596 (Fla.1987); Bird v. Hardrives of Delray, Inc., 644 So.2d 89 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994.) The discovery abuses alleged to have been committed by Detroit Diesel in this case are not of the type which have such evidentiary value.
The separate issue presented on the cross-appeal is the trial court's jurisdiction to entertain a motion for sanctions directed to pretrial discovery violations first filed by plaintiffs after the entry of final judgment. Detroit Diesel contends the motion for sanctions is untimely because plaintiffs waited until after trial and after the entry of a final judgment to file the motion for sanctions. However, plaintiffs point out that when they sought to introduce the evidence of discovery misconduct at trial, Detroit Diesel took the position that the proper way to handle the issue was through a motion for sanctions.
The fact that the motion for sanctions was filed post-trial would not alone render the motion untimely and the court without jurisdiction to consider it. The broadly stated rule is that ordinarily upon entry of a final judgment, a court has no further jurisdiction over the matter in controversy unless provided by statute or rule or unless jurisdiction has been specifically reserved. See Estate of Paulk v. Lindamood, 529 So.2d 1150, 1153 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988). The limited exceptions to this broad rule generally include collateral matters such as taxation of costs and prevailing party attorney's fees. See Kennedy v. Alberto, 649 So.2d 286 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995). A motion for sanctions seeking attorney's fees and reasonable expenses as a result of discovery abuses and alleged violations of court orders properly falls within the exception to the rule as an independent and collateral claim.
In Roberts v. Askew, 260 So.2d 492 (Fla.1972), the supreme court held that a prevailing party's costs may be adjudicated after final judgment, during the pendency of an appeal or after the appeal has been concluded. In Finkelstein v. North Broward Hospital District, 484 So.2d 1241 (Fla.1986), the supreme court determined that a trial court was not without jurisdiction to entertain the plaintiffs' motion for "prevailing party" attorney's...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
BAMBU v. EI Dupont De Nemours & Co., Inc.
...an instruction for an adverse inference to be drawn from the failure to produce nonessential evidence. Amlan, Inc. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., 651 So.2d 701 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), the decision on which the trial court relied to support its decision to instruct the jury, did not involve either an......
-
Martino v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
...Anesthesiology Critical Care & Pain Mgmt. Consultants, P.A. v. Kretzer, 802 So.2d 346 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001); Amlan, Inc. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., 651 So.2d 701, 703 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); N.H. Ins. Co. v. Royal Ins. Co., 559 So.2d 102, 103 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990). Like these many other jurisdiction......
-
Smallwood v. Perez, 96-3243.
...that a motion for attorney's fees as a sanction is a collateral matter which may be filed after judgment. In Amlan, Inc. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., 651 So.2d 701 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), it was held that a motion for attorney's fees for pretrial discovery abuse may be filed afterward. See id. at ......
-
Totura & Co., Inc. v. Williams
...that "[t]he purpose of the rules of civil procedure is to promote the orderly movement of litigation"); Amlan, Inc. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., 651 So.2d 701, 704-05 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995) (citing Mercer for proposition that "[t]he purpose of the Rules of Civil Procedure is to promote the orderly......
-
The wild and wooly world of inference and presumptions - when silence is deafening.
...the standard of review applied to decisions of the trial court is abuse of discretion. (24) In Alman, Inc. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., 651 So. 2d 701, 703 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), citing Valcin, the court noted that the destruction or unexplained absence of crucial evidence may result in the shift......