Hyundai Motor Co. v. Stamper

• Decision Date: 12 June 1995
• Docket Number: No. 54A01-9501-CV-3,54A01-9501-CV-3
• Citation: 651 N.E.2d 803
• Parties: HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, Hyundai Motor America, Inc., and Five Star Motors of Lafayette, Inc., d/b/a Bob Rohrman Hyundai, Appellants-Defendants, v. Joycelyne A. STAMPER and Scott A. Stamper, individually and as the parents and natural guardians of Cristen R. Stamper, a minor, Lauren K. Stamper, a minor, Brandon S. Stamper, a minor, and Alicia N. Stamper, a deceased minor, Appellees-Plaintiffs.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 803

651 N.E.2d 803

HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, Hyundai Motor America, Inc., and Five Star Motors of Lafayette, Inc., d/b/a Bob Rohrman Hyundai, Appellants-Defendants, v. Joycelyne A. STAMPER and Scott A. Stamper, individually and as the parents and natural guardians of Cristen R. Stamper a minor, Lauren K. Stamper, a minor, Brandon S. Stamper, a minor, and Alicia N. Stamper, a deceased minor, Appellees-Plaintiffs.

No. 54A01-9501-CV-3.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

June 12, 1995.

James D. Witchger, Rocap, Witchger & Threlkeld, Indianapolis, Michael T. Pulaski, Robert W. Maxwell, Pulaski, Gieger & LaBorde, New Orleans, LA, for appellants.

James R. Fisher, Debra H. Miller, J. Scott Fanzini, Ice, Miller, Donadio & Ryan, Indianapolis, for appellees.

OPINION

BAKER, Judge.

Appellants-defendants Hyundai Motor Company, Hyundai Motor America, Inc., and Five Star Motors of Lafayette, Inc., d/b/a Bob Rohrman Hyundai (collectively Hyundai) allege that the trial court's award of expenses and attorney fees, pursuant to Ind. Trial Rule 37(C), to appellees-plaintiffs Joycelyne A. Stamper and Scott S. Stamper, individually and as the parents and natural guardians of Cristen R. Stamper, a minor, Lauren K. Stamper, a minor, Brandon S. Stamper, a minor, and Alicia N. Stamper, a deceased minor (collectively Stampers) was unjustified.

FACTS

On March 31, 1991, Joycelyne Stamper was transporting four of her children to Indianapolis in her 1990 Hyundai Excel. While travelling along State Road 32 in Montgomery County, Indiana, the Stampers were involved in a collision. Alicia Stamper was killed, and Cristen Stamper was ejected from the vehicle and sustained severe and permanent brain damage.

On March 16, 1992, the Stampers filed suit against Hyundai alleging that their Hyundai Excel, which had split in half through the passenger compartment along a seam of welds, was in a defective condition and unreasonably dangerous. Record at 97. During the Stampers' pre-trial investigation, they became aware of four newspaper and trade magazine articles which contained statements that Hyundai company executives had made during press conferences regarding the quality, manufacturing, and selling of Hyundai automobiles. As a result, on January 31, 1994, the Stampers served a request for admission, pursuant to Ind. Trial Rule 36(A), to Hyundai focusing on one of the articles. The Stampers' two requests read:

1. The attached article from the April 29, 1991 Automotive News accurately quotes and accurately summarizes the comments made by Chon Sung-Won, President of Hyundai Motor Corporation.

2. The April 29, 1991 Automotive News interview with Chon Sung-Won, President of Hyundai Motor Corporation, is admissible in evidence as admissions of a party.

R. at 109. Along with the requests for admission, the Stampers tendered interrogatories which stated that if Hyundai did not admit the requests for admission, Hyundai was to identify each statement in the article which Hyundai believed misquoted a Hyundai executive. R. at 114. Further, after setting forth all misstatements, Hyundai was asked to identify what the executive had actually said at the press conference.

Hyundai responded to the Stampers' requests for admission and interrogatories by raising an objection in which it asserted that the statements contained in the article were immaterial and irrelevant to the issues of the case which dealt with crashworthiness, strict liability, and products liability, and thus, they were not required to respond. Hyundai stated, "the article did not make the faintest mention of safety which is the issue in this case." R. at 118-19.

On July 21, 1994, the Stampers filed a motion to strike Hyundai's response to their requests for admission or in the alternative to compel Hyundai to admit or deny the requests. Also, on July 28, 1994, the Stampers served additional requests for admission on Hyundai. These requests sought for Hyundai to admit that statements made by Hyundai executives in the three other articles published in Ward's Automotive International, Dealer Business, and The Chicago Tribune, were accurate and admissible as admissions of a party.

After a hearing, the trial court granted the Stampers' motion to strike Hyundai's response to their first requests for admission on August 10, 1994. The court found that Hyundai's response was unnecessarily evasive and vague and ordered Hyundai to respond to the requests in a straight-forward manner. Thereafter, on August 19, 1994, Hyundai served their supplemental response to the Stampers' requests for admission concerning all four of the articles. In this response, Hyundai first raised a general objection to the requests claiming that the subject of each request was wholly immaterial and irrelevant to the issues before the court. Then, Hyundai denied each individual request.

Since Hyundai refused to admit that the statements in the articles were accurate, the Stampers attempted to prove the accuracy of the statements by deposing William W. Wolf, the director of public relations for Hyundai Motor America, Inc., Neil Douglas Mazza, the chief operating officer and executive vice-president of Hyundai Motor America, Inc., and two reporters, one of which wrote the article in Automotive News. Thereafter, the Stampers filed a motion for sanctions alleging that Hyundai unreasonably obstructed the discovery process by not admitting the truth of the executives' statements and requesting that the trial court order Hyundai to pay their attorney fees and the expenses incurred in proving the accuracy of those statements. ¹ After a hearing, the trial court granted the Stampers' motion for sanctions finding that:

"[T]he requests for admissions by [the Stampers] were relatively straight forward and uncomplicated and could be easily answered by either admitting or denying. The court further finds that [Hyundai] first objected and that the court overruled the objections and ordered [Hyundai] to respond. [Hyundai] responded by denying the admissions. The [Stampers] were then put to the expense and the trouble of arranging for depositions, submitting additional interrogatories and otherwise verifying as true the admissions that were wrongly denied by [Hyundai].

The court finds that [Hyundai's] objections, that the request for admissions called for [Hyundai] to admit statements that were incomplete, that were taken out of context, were irrelevant and immaterial or prejudicial, do not bear on whether or not the statements were made and the court finds that the statements were made. It is clear from the evidence that has been introduced that the statements were made or that the articles accurately summarize the statements or the subject of the discussion if they were not directly quoted ... and the court finds that the requests to admissions (sic) were denied in bad faith and without good reason and therefore the sanctions should be imposed on [Hyundai] for such failure to comply in good faith with discovery."

R. at 405-08. The court ordered Hyundai to pay the Stampers $6,257.14 for their expenses and $28,156.00 for their attorney fees incurred in proving the accuracy of the statements for a total award of $34,413.14. However, the court stated that it would withhold entering any order or judgment that would require Hyundai to pay that amount pending further hearing. In response, Hyundai requested that the court enter a final order fixing the amount that it owed the Stampers without further hearing so that "this particular issue might be closed and [Hyundai] might take an appeal of the court's determination of liability and amount of sanctions." ² R. at 409-10. On November 28, 1994, the court entered its final order ³ and Hyundai brought this appeal raising the following issues which we restate as: 1) whether the requests for admission were vague and irrelevant to the issue of safety and 2) whether the trial court erred in determining that the Stampers were entitled to an award of expenses and attorney fees under T.R. 37(C).

DISCUSSION AND DECISION

A trial court is vested with broad discretion in ruling on issues relating to discovery, and this court will reverse a trial court's rulings in this area only where an abuse of that discretion is apparent. Marshall v. Woodruff (1994), Ind.App., 631 N.E.2d 3, 5. Further, a trial court's determination of which sanction to impose for failure to comply with the trial court's order concerning a discovery matter is also a matter within its discretion. McCullough v. Archbold Ladder Co. (1993), Ind., 605 N.E.2d 175, 180.

I. Requests for Admission

Initially, Hyundai argues that it was justified in denying the Stampers' requests for admission because the requests were vague and ambiguous in that they "did not set forth specific language which the Stampers contend is attributable to specific Hyundai executives." Appellant's Brief at 18. Hyundai cites F.W. Means & Co. v. Carstens (1981), Ind.App., 428 N.E.2d 251, 257, for the proposition that it is the requesting party's burden to artfully draft the statement of facts contained in its request for admission. The statement must be precise, unambiguous and in no way mislead the answering party. Id.

Hyundai correctly recites the law set forth in F.W. Means & Co. However, we find that in the present case the Stampers did artfully and precisely draft their requests for admission. The first set of requests specifically refer Hyundai to the article published in Automotive News, a copy of which was attached to the Stampers request, and specifically ask Hyundai to admit the accuracy of the statements made by Hyundai's President, Chon Sung-Won. Similarly, each of the other requests specifically identified a particular Hyundai representative and the newspaper or magazine article that contained statements made by that executive. Copies of these articles were also attached to the Stampers' requests for admission. We do not see how Hyundai, who had copies of ...