Johansen v. Johansen

• Decision Date: 26 November 2021
• Docket Number: 20200234-CA
• Citation: 504 P.3d 152
• Parties: Colten JOHANSEN, Appellee, v. Kathy JOHANSEN, Appellant.
• Court: Utah Court of Appeals

504 P.3d 152

Colten JOHANSEN, Appellee,

v.Kathy JOHANSEN, Appellant.

No. 20200234-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed November 26, 2021

Charles R. Ahlstrom, Attorney for Appellant

Jason B. Richards, Attorney for Appellee

Judge Gregory K. Orme authored this Opinion, in which Judges Michele M. Christiansen Forster and David N. Mortensen concurred.

Opinion

ORME, Judge:

¶1 Kathy Johansen challenges the district court's denial of her motion to dismiss Colten Johansen's petition to terminate alimony. She argues that the court erred in finding that Colten's failure to provide initial disclosures was harmless.¹ We agree and reverse.

BACKGROUND²

¶2 In 2011, Kathy and Colten divorced. The divorce decree required Colten to pay Kathy alimony that was to terminate after 15 years or upon Kathy's remarriage or cohabitation. On October 30, 2018, Colten filed a petition to terminate alimony, alleging that Kathy had been cohabitating with another man (Boyfriend) since at least January 2018. Acting pro se, Kathy filed her answer on November 8, 2018, denying the allegation. A pretrial conference was held the following March, during which the district court set the case for a three-day bench trial to begin in late August 2019. On July 29, Colten, having never filed his initial disclosures, provided pretrial disclosures that included his witness list and his exhibits. The witness list named Kathy, Colten, a private investigator, and Kathy and Colten's daughter (Daughter). On August 6, Kathy moved to dismiss the petition to terminate alimony, alleging that Colten never served initial disclosures as required by rule 26 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Pursuant to rule 26, Colten was required to provide these disclosures way back in November 2018, 14 days after Kathy filed her answer to his petition. See Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(A).

¶3 Just before the trial began, the district court addressed Kathy's motion to dismiss. Although the court stated that Colten appeared to have violated rule 26 ’s disclosure requirements, it declined to exclude Colten's witnesses and exhibits because it found that the apparent violation of the rule was harmless. Specifically, while addressing Kathy, the court ruled:

[Colten's] responsibility exists in and of itself to provide those initial disclosures to you. However, there is an exception. If ... they can show that the failure is harmless or there is good cause, ... they can overcome that requirement.

There's one other requirement, and that is they don't have to disclose anything to you that would be used for impeachment purposes. And so what they would do is they would simply call you to testify in their case in chief, allow you to testify.

Once you testify in a certain way, then [Colten] is going to say, "Well, we have witnesses."

You'll say, "Wait, those witnesses weren't disclosed to me."

And then he'll say, "These are for rebuttal purposes or impeachment purposes only. We didn't have to disclose impeachment evidence," and so, really, it turns out to be harmless. It's just a matter of the order in which they call their witnesses.

And in calling you first and having you testify first, then they bring in people [such as] a private investigator, your daughter or whoever that would be in the nature of impeachment evidence, which they are not required to disclose under Rule 26.

So the Court finds that while this does appear to be a violation of ... or I'll say could be a violation of Rule 26(a)(2) and Rule 26.1(b), the violation would be harmless in that they're not required under Rule 26 or 26.1(b) to disclose impeachment evidence that was retained for impeachment purposes only.

¶4 And a few months after trial, at a hearing on Kathy's motion to amend the court's findings, the court added to its harmlessness finding:

As a party and as a person involved in a case, to ... disclose [Kathy] as a potential witness certainly is helpful, but what is she going to do to then go find out from herself what her testimony will be and to find out from herself what her documents may be? She's already got those. She should have that knowledge. That ... is harmless. ... I think this a prime and premium example of harmlessness, because her attempts to depose herself or subpoena her own documents or anything like that, that ... just doesn't make sense at all why that is necessary.

.... She had ... at least 28 days to prepare for the fact that she was going to be a witness.

I believe ... the [pretrial disclosures filed on July 29, 2019,] also disclosed the impeachment witnesses that were going to testify. So it's not like she didn't know that either.

So all of the purposes of Rule 26 were served under these circumstances[.]

¶5 At trial, Colten first called Kathy to testify. She testified that during the time in question, Daughter and other family members lived with her. She stated that she and Boyfriend had been dating for approximately two years. Although she did affirm that Boyfriend kept a few dress shirts and a pair of running shoes at her house, and that he occasionally spent the night there, she denied that he had ever lived in the home with her. Colten then presented Kathy with photographs taken from inside her home. One photograph showed a carburetor that Boyfriend had designed and a plaque that he had received as an award for it. Kathy explained that Boyfriend had gifted both to her. The second photograph depicted a laptop and a pair of glasses. Kathy claimed that the laptop was Boyfriend's that he let her borrow and that the glasses belonged to her. The next photograph was taken in her bathroom and showed shaving cream, a razor, and a bag. Kathy claimed that the shaving cream and razor were hers but the bag belonged to Boyfriend, which contained "his stuff to stay overnight." Colten then showed Kathy multiple photos of a computer, her bedroom, and a spare bedroom. Kathy claimed that most of the items depicted in the photographs belonged to her or her children, with the exception of the dress shirts and running shoes that belonged to Boyfriend. Throughout Kathy's testimony, she continued to aver that, while Boyfriend obviously spent time at the house, he did not live there.

¶6 Colten next called himself as a witness. He testified that when he went to pick up his children from Kathy's home, they "would tell me that [Boyfriend] was there the whole time that they would stay there." Colten also testified that Boyfriend's car would be at Kathy's house a majority of the time he came by to pick them up. Colten then offered into evidence a mailed envelope, addressed to Boyfriend at Kathy's address, that he found in a garbage can in front of Kathy's house. Kathy objected to this evidence, claiming that she was not made aware of the envelope when Colten identified exhibits in his pretrial disclosures. The court overruled her objection, stating, "For impeachment purposes those things are not required to be disclosed."

¶7 Colten next called Daughter to testify. She stated that Boyfriend was living with Kathy in the home, that he kept his personal belongings in the home, that he had a key to the home, and that he had complete access to the home at all times. She also claimed that Boyfriend slept in the same room as Kathy, gave Kathy money, and bought groceries. Daughter stated that she had taken the photographs that were shown to Kathy during Kathy's testimony, and that the computer, clothes, and other items mostly belonged to Boyfriend and not to Kathy or to Kathy's children, as Kathy had claimed. Finally, Daughter testified that Boyfriend spent approximately 95% of his nights at the home.

¶8 Colten's final witness was a private investigator. He testified that over the course of the five days he spent surveilling the home, he witnessed Boyfriend carry groceries from his vehicle into the home, take tools from the garage and put them in his truck, have conversations with neighbors in which he presented himself as Kathy's husband, enter the home in the evening and leave the next morning in different clothes, and undertake other actions indicative of Boyfriend living in the home. Colten then offered into evidence the investigator's written report, which the court accepted.

¶9 Kathy called no witnesses of her own. The district court subsequently found that Kathy and Boyfriend had cohabitated from January 2018 until at least November 2018, when Colten served Kathy with the petition to terminate alimony. Accordingly, the court terminated Colten's alimony obligations retroactive to January 2018 and entered judgment against Kathy in the amount of the excess alimony Colten had paid since that time.

¶10 Kathy appeals.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶11 Kathy contends that the district court erred in denying her motion to dismiss Colten's petition to terminate alimony and bar all his witnesses as a sanction pursuant to rule 26(d)(4) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure.³ "We review a district court's interpretation of our rules of civil procedure, precedent, and common law for correctness." Keystone Ins. Agency v. Inside Ins. , 2019 UT 20, ¶ 12, 445 P.3d 434. But in reviewing a court's determination with respect to harmlessness and good cause, our review is necessarily deferential. This is because "a court's decision in discovery matters is a discretionary call, and ... we will affirm such decisions when the court's discretion was not abused, even if we or another court might have made a different decision in the first instance." Segota v. Young 180 Co. , 2020 UT App 105, ¶ 22, 470 P.3d 479 (quotation simplified). Accordingly, we will reverse a court's harmlessness determination "only if there is no reasonable basis for the district court's decision." See Berger v. Ogden Reg'l Med. Center , 2020 UT App 85, ¶ 15, 469 P.3d 1127 (quotation simplified).

ANALYSIS

¶12 In relevant part, rule 26 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure requires parties to serve initial disclosures "without waiting for a discovery request." Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(1). These disclosures must...