Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
- Martinez-Olguin
- 3:21-cv-03496
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Surgical Instrument Service v. Intuitive Surgical, Judge Martinez-Olguin granted Intuitive’s motion in limine, excluding hospital statements SIS sought to present to the jury.
Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. may not present the specified out-of-court hospital statements to the jury; the ruling grants Intuitive Surgical, Inc.’s evidentiary motion.
What happened
In Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Intuitive asked the court to exclude out-of-court statements that hospital representatives allegedly made to Keith Johnson. The court asked SIS to provide evidence supporting a hearsay exception for those statements.
SIS relied on Federal Rule of Evidence 803(3), which can allow statements describing a speaker’s current state of mind. But the court found that SIS had not provided other admissible evidence showing that it lost business. Johnson’s account of what hospital representatives told him was itself hearsay, and SIS had not shown that it was reliable enough to prove a lost business opportunity.
The court granted Intuitive’s motion in limine and barred SIS from presenting the hospitals’ alleged views through out-of-court statements that would not be tested by cross-examination. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin issued the order.
The detailed version
- Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc. · No. 3:21-cv-03496
- Martinez-Olguin
- Dec. 20, 2024
Background
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. filed motion in limine number 1, seeking to exclude out-of-court statements by hospital representatives. The court had previously directed Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc. (SIS) to submit an evidentiary proffer supporting the claimed hearsay exception. SIS submitted a proffer based on Keith Johnson’s testimony, and Intuitive responded.
Legal standard
Federal Rule of Evidence 803(3) creates a hearsay exception for a statement describing the declarant’s then-existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition. The exception does not cover a statement of memory or belief when offered to prove the fact remembered or believed. The court noted that evidence about why customers stopped dealing with a business may be admissible under this exception if there is otherwise admissible proof that the business was lost.
Court’s analysis
SIS offered Johnson’s testimony that hospital representatives told him, in substance, that they wanted to purchase repaired EndoWrists from Intuitive but feared penalties or pressure from Intuitive. The court found that SIS had not presented otherwise admissible proof that it lost business. It also found that Johnson’s testimony was itself hearsay and that SIS had not offered sufficient reliability for using that testimony to prove the fact of a lost opportunity.
Ruling
The court GRANTS Intuitive’s motion in limine number 1. SIS may not present to the jury the supposed views of hospitals through out-of-court statements that will not be tested through cross-examination.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.