In Re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:18-cv-01586
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation: Judge Corley ruled on trial-evidence objections, demonstratives, and pretrial procedures before trial.
The plaintiffs and Chart, particularly their trial presentations, exhibits, expert testimony, demonstratives, and proposed jury instructions.
What happened
In re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation involved the parties’ disputes about evidence and trial preparation before the scheduled trial. Chart objected to several of the plaintiffs’ exhibits and to testimony by the plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Anand Kasbekar.
The court overruled some objections, sustained others, and denied Chart’s request to limit Dr. Kasbekar’s testimony as untimely. It sustained the plaintiffs’ authenticity objection to Chart’s Exhibit 360 unless Chart first made the required showing. The court also ruled on proposed demonstratives, jury instructions, exhibit procedures, and the timing of opening statements.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s order disposed of the listed pretrial docket entries but did not decide the parties’ underlying claims. The order was entered on May 19, 2021.
The detailed version
- In Re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation · No. 3:18-cv-01586
- Jacquelyn Corley
- May 19, 2021
Background
The order confirmed the court’s rulings at the third pretrial conference held on May 18, 2021. The disputes concerned proposed trial exhibits, expert testimony, demonstrative exhibits, jury instructions, and trial scheduling.
Chart’s Objections to Plaintiffs’ Exhibits
Chart objected to 74 of the plaintiffs’ exhibits as improper evidence of other occurrences. The court ruled on the exhibits the plaintiffs then intended to offer.
The court overruled objections to Trial Exhibits 219, 201, 217, 239, 223, 280, 287, and 206. It found the emails relevant to issues including Chart’s knowledge of a controller defect and potential damage to tank contents from low-level liquid nitrogen. For several emails between Chart employees, the court also ruled that they were admissible, if offered for their truth, as statements of an employee of a party opponent under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(D).
Chart also objected to seven exhibits as a basis for “state of mind” testimony by the plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Anand Kasbekar. To the extent Chart sought to limit Kasbekar’s expert testimony, including opinion number 6, the court denied the request as untimely. The court stated that Chart could cross-examine Kasbekar.
The court overruled the objection to Exhibit 2 but limited Kasbekar’s testimony. He could testify about his understanding of Chart’s statement that the bend was manufactured, and about what he was told as context for testing, but he could not characterize Chart’s statement as “misleading.” The court overruled objections to Exhibits 5, 192, and 208, and sustained objections to Exhibits 234, 275, and 276, for the reasons stated on the record.
Plaintiffs’ Objection to Chart’s Exhibit
The plaintiffs made an authenticity objection to Chart’s Exhibit 360. The court sustained that objection unless and until Chart met and conferred with the plaintiffs and made a proper showing of authenticity and relevance.
Other Trial Matters
The court directed the parties to move into evidence, at the beginning of each witness’s testimony, all exhibits they expected to use with that witness.
For demonstrative exhibits, the court sustained the plaintiffs’ objections to the “snowball” photo, use of a video of Dr. Miller’s test, and any reference to Elizabeth Balassone. It overruled the plaintiffs’ objections concerning the multiple-alarm listing, a back-dating reference, a statement about Dr. Conaghan’s manual-monitoring policy for Tank 4, and a blank “digital evidence” column. It overruled Chart’s objections to the plaintiffs’ demonstrative exhibit. The court also directed Chart not to refer to the tank “warranty” in its opening statement or demonstratives.
The court made preliminary rulings on several jury instructions and stated that the parties would discuss the instructions more fully during the trial’s charging conference. The parties were directed to meet and confer and jointly file a proposed instruction based on Ninth Circuit Model Jury Instruction 1.5 by May 21, 2021, at noon. Opening statements were scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. on May 24, with each side limited to one hour.
Disposition and Classification
The order stated that it disposed of Docket Nos. 783, 785, 799, 800, and 802. It was a pretrial and evidentiary order, not a decision on the underlying claims. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley signed the order as a United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.