Longoria by Longoria v. Wilson, 82-2127

• Decision Date: 23 April 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-2127,82-2127
• Citation: 730 F.2d 300
• Parties: 15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 878 Eddie LONGORIA, Deceased, by Elias LONGORIA, As Temporary Administrator of his Estate, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. B.T. WILSON, Individually and in his official capacity as a Police Officer of the City of McAllen, Texas, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 300

730 F.2d 300

15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 878

Eddie LONGORIA, Deceased, by Elias LONGORIA, As Temporary Administrator of his Estate, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. B.T. WILSON, Individually and in his official capacity as a Police Officer of the City of McAllen, Texas Defendant-Appellant.

No. 82-2127.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

April 23, 1984.

John E. Lewis, B. Buck Pettitt, McAllen, Tex., for defendant-appellant.

James C. Harrington, Austin, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before BROWN, WISDOM and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal from an award of liability in a civil rights case, B.T. Wilson contends that the District Court erred in failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing regarding the existence of a post-judgment settlement. We agree, thus, we vacate and remand for that purpose. Wilson also asserts error on three independent bases: first, he claims that certain testimony should have been inadmissible at trial under the Texas Dead Man's Statute; second, that attempted violations of the Court's motion in limine constituted a basis for mistrial; and third, that punitive damages were improperly awarded. We find that any such error was harmless and affirm the judgment as to those claims.

A Tale of Two Lawsuits

We are faced in this appeal with the confusing product of two lawsuits. The first is a class action, filed in 1976, in which appellee Longoria ¹ and at least eight other named plaintiffs charged the City of McAllen, Texas, its Police Chief, and at least 15 individual police officers with violations of their civil rights under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983, 1985, 1986 and the Fourteenth Amendment. The second case, an individual action by appellee Longoria against former McAllen Police Officer B.T. Wilson (charging essentially the same deprivations) was severed from the class action by the Court's order of April 10, 1980, along with those of all the other individual plaintiffs against the individual officers. The remaining class action, against the City and the Police Chief, styled Guadalupe Cano, et al. v. Jesse Colbath, et al. (S.D.Tex., Brownsville Div., CA 76-B-52), was to be tried following resolution of the individual claims.

Eddie Longoria's individual action against Wilson was tried in the fall of 1980. In this action, Longoria alleged that Wilson severely assaulted and battered him following an unlawful arrest. The jury found that although Wilson did not unlawfully arrest Longoria, he did employ excessive force against Longoria while Longoria was in custody. On October 28, 1980, after the jury's verdict for $15,000 in actual and $15,000 in punitive damages, a final judgment against Wilson was entered. Wilson filed a motion for new trial on November 5, 1980, alleging several bases for error in the judgment. We address three of those asserted errors infra.

In March, 1981, Cano v. Colbath, the class action, was set for trial. The plaintiff class contended that the City and its Police Chief had violated their civil rights in failing properly to train, supervise and discipline McAllen police officers. Wilson's assault upon Longoria was one of the incidents alleged to demonstrate the pattern and practice of McAllen police misconduct. Shortly after trial began, the proceedings were suspended when counsel ² announced that they had reached a settlement agreement wherein the City and its insurer would each pay $125,000 ³ without conceding liability. This agreement apparently was reached during the course of a weekend meeting of counsel at which the trial judge was not present.

In April, Pettitt forwarded a proposed final judgment, checks totaling $85,000, and release forms to Harrington, counsel for Longoria. One of the checks was made out to Longoria in the amount of $15,000. Harrington discovered that the releases and proposed judgment possibly covered not only a settlement of the class action, but also a settlement of Longoria's individual action. Believing such a settlement did not reflect the parties' agreement, Harrington--without the consent of Pettitt and indeed contrary to the condition set forth in the letter that accompanied the checks ⁴--changed both documents to indicate a settlement of the class action only. These documents were later returned to Wilson's attorneys, although apparently the altered release form cannot be located. At a hearing on the motion for new trial in the Longoria case, the attorneys called the settlement dispute in all its particulars to the Court's attention. The Court was unable to resolve the matter with no written motion or documentation before it. The attorneys were ordered to confer and attempt to reach an agreement:

[T]hat's a matter you gentlemen had better talk over one more time.... If there is a genuine dispute, then what you [addressing Mr. Harrington] had better do forthwith is to return that money and the releases with a letter setting out what you thought the agreement was. Then if John [referring to Mr. Lewis] does not agree to that, we will just set these cases back on the active docket ... defense counsel can file a motion setting out their grounds.

Two days later, on June 5, 1981, Harrington sent a letter to Lewis expressing disbelief as to defense counsel's contentions at the hearing. Harrington explained that he had changed the names on the judgment and releases because he felt listing of the individual police officer defendants as well as the class action defendants was a clerical error. Harrington requested a reply within three days. A letter dated June 9, 1981, states that no such reply was received. On July 2, 1981, defense counsel filed a motion in the Longoria suit contending that the post-judgment compromise constituted a settlement of the individual actions including specifically Longoria's, and requesting a hearing on the issue. Two weeks later, the plaintiffs answered, simply denying the allegations of the motion. The response was accompanied by an affidavit from Harrington stating that the Home Insurance check for $15,000 made out to Longoria was in Harrington's possession but had not yet been negotiated. This controverted only Lewis' allegation that Longoria had already cashed the check. In September of 1981, with no response from Lewis and no action by the Court, Harrington, faced with the expiration of the six-month negotiability period of the insurer's draft, wrote to Lewis stating that Longoria would cash the check and hold the funds in a separate account pending resolution of the settlement dispute.

The final chapter of the trial portion of this saga closed on February 16, 1982, when the District Court summarily denied Wilson's motion for new trial. In its order of that date, without findings of fact, a hearing, or comment of any kind, the Court also denied Wilson's motion for a hearing on the settlement issue. Wilson filed a timely notice of appeal on March 15, 1982. Longoria has apparently retained the $15,000 from Home Insurance's portion of the settlement.

Who Settled What?

Wilson contends on appeal that the post-judgment settlement was a settlement of both Cano v. Colbath and Longoria v. Wilson. There is no dispute that Cano v. Colbath was settled--what is at issue here is whether the parties intended that settlement to be a compromise--partial or complete--of Longoria's individual action as well. The $30,000 damage award in Longoria v. Wilson is now a final judgment. We can only surmise that because it denied the motion for a hearing, the District Court must have concluded that the settlement was a compromise of only Cano v. Colbath. However, the Court's failure to hold a hearing, receive factual proof or otherwise state the basis for its conclusions leaves us with a record so incomplete that we cannot render effective appellate review.

Although Longoria repeatedly calls attention to the fact that defense counsel's correspondence concerning the settlement was referenced only to Cano v. Colbath, we cannot agree that this, coupled with the limited number of other undisputed facts, was a sufficient factual basis for the trial court to find as a matter of fact or as a matter of law that the settlement was limited solely to Cano v. Colbath. Additionally, it is still unclear exactly how much money Longoria received or was to receive in the Cano v. Colbath settlement. If he received only the $15,000 from Home Insurance one might logically reason that he never intended to settle Longoria v. Wilson, in which he already had obtained a judgment for $30,000. On the other hand, the record also clearly demonstrates that Harrington received $125,000 from the City of McAllen as trustee for his clients. We have nothing before us which explains where that money went and whether Longoria received any portion of it. Indeed, the only evidence before the trial court consisted of the parties' bare allegations in the form of the motion for hearing and response thereto, miscellaneous correspondence from which we can find no determinative facts, and one affidavit wherein Harrington attests to the fact that he had not cashed the check as of June 3, 1981.

We are also disturbed by the fact that, without explanation, the trial court apparently found in favor of Longoria in a factual dispute involving highly questionable conduct by Longoria's attorney. Harrington's retention of the $15,000 after unilaterally altering the release and proposed judgment that accompanied payment flew in the face of specific instructions from both the tenderer of the check, Home Insurance, and the trial judge himself. ⁵ While we consider the propriety of Harrington's unilateral actions to be dubious at best, it was for the trial court to impose sanctions as it saw fit. At this juncture, we review Harrington's actions, reprehensible as they may be, only insofar as they raise evidentiary issues pertaining to settlement that remain...