Woodgate v. St. James Winery, Inc.

• Citation: 656 S.W.3d 24
• Decision Date: 30 September 2022
• Docket Number: SD 37181
• Parties: Daniel WOODGATE and Tanya Woodgate, Respondents, v. ST. JAMES WINERY, INC. and Raul R. Espinoza, Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

656 S.W.3d 24

Daniel WOODGATE and Tanya Woodgate, Respondents,

v.ST. JAMES WINERY, INC. and Raul R. Espinoza, Appellants.

No. SD 37181

Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, In Division.

Filed: September 30, 2022

Rehearing and/or Transfer Denied October 20, 2022

Application for Transfer Denied December 20, 2022

Appellants’ attorneys: Susan Ford Robertson and J. Zachary Bickel, Kansas City, MO.

Respondents’ attorneys: Jeff Bauer and Steve Garner, Springfield, MO and Benjamin J. Sansone, Brent A. Sumner, and Andrew Martin, Clayton, MO.

JACK A. L. GOODMAN, C.J.

Daniel and Tanya Woodgate were riding in a motorcycle convoy when Raul Espinoza, an employee working in the course and scope of his employment with St. James Winery, turned a company vehicle into the path of the convoy. Mr. Woodgate suffered permanent, structural damage to his brain as a result of the motor vehicle accident. After a hotly contested trial, a jury found in favor of the Woodgates, awarding them damages in the amount of $12.8 million after comparative fault offset. Additional facts will be presented in the context of the point to which they relate.

Appellants allege error in the admission of certain evidence over their objection and in the denial of their request for mistrial. We affirm because Appellants have not met the high bar to show the circuit court abused its discretion.

Admission of Expert Testimony

The severity and extent of Mr. Woodgate's brain damage was an issue the parties knew would be contested at trial. Among others, the Woodgates designated as their expert Dr. O'Riordan, Mr. Woodgate's treating rehabilitation doctor in his home country of Australia. The Woodgates did not designate Dr. Huntley, Mr. Woodgate's treating neuropsychologist, also based in Australia. Appellants designated as their expert Dr. Fucetola, a neuropsychologist.

Appellants had difficulty getting data and test results transmitted from Dr. Huntley to Dr. Fucetola, who only received the information he needed a few weeks before the start of trial.¹ The trial court remarked, "[Dr.] Fucetola, it sounds like, got some data at the last minute that he needed in order to come up with his opinions ...."

During a discovery deposition the Friday before the selection of a jury on Monday, the Woodgates’ attorneys learned, for the first time, that Dr. Fucetola used the recently-acquired data to generate an Intelligence Quotient Equivalent ("IQE") chart, which supported his opinion that Mr. Woodgate had made a significant recovery because his post-crash intelligence was within the range of average. The Woodgates’ counsel was concerned because their anticipated expert testimony focused on Mr. Woodgate's cognitive and behavioral deficits, not his intelligence. The Woodgates’ attorneys emailed Dr. Huntley to set up a time to discuss Dr. Fucetola's opinion.

Dr. Huntley was not available to speak with the Woodgates’ attorneys until a week later. The Woodgates’ attorneys represented to the court that Dr. Huntley said the data was accurate but the IQE chart was misleading. At that point, both parties had given opening statements and the jury had heard three days of testimony from the Woodgates’ witnesses. That Saturday, the Woodgates filed a notice of their intent to present expert testimony from Dr. Huntley.

The circuit court initially was reluctant to grant the untimely expert designation and permit Dr. Huntley to testify. After extensive oral argument, the court was persuaded that the IQE issue did not arise until the Friday before trial began on Monday, and the Woodgates’ counsel did not know he had a witness who could rebut Dr. Fucetola's IQE chart until a week after counsel first became aware of the issue.² At that point, the court was inclined to permit Dr. Huntley to testify as an expert but only as to the very limited issue of the IQE:

Well, I'm not opening the door for you to use Dr. Huntley as a general expert to rebut everything that Dr. Fucetola was going to say. You've had -- you've had your expert testimony describing the cognitive deficits that your client has suffered. And to the extent that Dr. Fucetola generally rebuts that, you've had your opportunity to show that portion of the case.

The surprise to you, that you've just found the answer to on Friday, has to do with the ... IQE. That's what he gets to talk about.

Everything else -- we've had Dr. O'Riordan. She testified for hours. And so to the extent that Dr. Fucetola is going to say, hey, he's got some neuropsychological or cognitive deficits

but they're not really that awful serious, you've had your shot at explaining to the jury that he actually has serious cognitive deficits.

The one thing that is a surprise to you is that all of a sudden there is this IQE. And so you get to rebut that with Dr. Huntley.

***

And I can tell you right now, to the best of my ability, I'm going to keep the scope of this testimony very narrow. I don't think once you get to the deposition to preserve testimony it's going to be a very long deposition. There's just not going to be very much that your witness is going to be allowed to talk about.

The trial could not proceed until this issue was resolved, so the jury was dismissed for the day. Discovery and preservation depositions of Dr. Huntley were taken that afternoon, with the court available to resolve disputes.³

After reviewing the deposition transcripts, the court observed, "The gist of the deposition testimony of Dr. Huntley, as redacted, is that here's an IQE chart. The IQE chart does not tell the whole picture."

Both sides were given the opportunity to be heard once again before the court made its ruling:

Now, the reason that I'm going to be willing to allow [Dr. Huntley's testimony] is because the word IQE did not enter the lexicon in this case, as I understand it, by any counsel, defense or plaintiff, until the Friday before this trial began. Now, neuropsychologists [k]new all about it. But that doesn't mean counsel knows about it.

And so plaintiff's counsel learned about the whole concept of an IQE, basically, one business day before trial. They tried to get ahold of Dr. Huntley, it took a few days to do it. Dr. Huntley said, well, that's misleading to use that by itself.

***

And there's a lot of other things that Dr. Huntley would like to address that he is not being allowed to address. He's done some tests, would like to just generally contradict the testimony of Dr. Fucetola. And that's not being allowed. The only thing that's being allowed is the one narrow issue of the IQE that all counsel just learned about right before trial started.

That's the order of the Court.

The Woodgates played the video deposition of Dr. Huntley during their case-in-chief. A video of Dr. Fucetola's deposition was played for the jury during Appellants’ case-in-chief. The Woodgates presented no rebuttal evidence.

On appeal, Appellants first claim Dr. Huntley's testimony was not proper rebuttal and permitted the Woodgates to have the last witness and the last word on the issue. This argument is a non sequitur because Dr. Huntley's video deposition was played during the Woodgates’ case-in-chief, not as a rebuttal to evidence offered in Appellants’ case-in-chief.

Appellants next argue they were prejudiced by the late designation of Dr. Huntley. Prejudice is a necessary showing for Appellants to prevail on appeal. Linton by & through Linton v. Carter , 634 S.W.3d 623, 627 (Mo. banc 2021) (judgment will not be reversed for erroneous ruling on evidence unless the error materially affected the merits of the action). But Appellants also must demonstrate the court's ruling was an abuse of discretion:

This Court reviews a circuit court's decision to admit or exclude expert testimony for an abuse of discretion. A circuit court abuses its discretion when its ruling is clearly against the logic of the circumstances then before the court and is so unreasonable and arbitrary that it shocks the sense of justice and indicates a lack of careful, deliberate consideration.

Id. at 626–27 (internal citation and punctuation omitted).

Appellants failed to meet this burden. The record shows that the court took great pains to sort through an issue the Woodgates’ counsel could not have discovered until one business day prior to the start of trial. The parties were given ample opportunity to be heard on this issue over two days of trial. The court recessed the jury so the parties could depose Dr. Huntley....