Edmondson v. RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc.

Background

On March 30, 2020, the court entered an opinion and order granting both sides’ motions to exclude expert testimony. On April 27, 2020, the parties filed separate motions asking the court to reconsider those decisions. The court explained that reconsideration is available only when a party identifies a change in controlling law, new evidence, or a clear error or manifest injustice that could change the result.

Plaintiffs’ Motion Concerning Buncher and Chamberlin

The plaintiffs argued that the court improperly excluded the Martin Buncher Survey. The court rejected the argument because it repeated points already considered and rejected. The court had previously concluded that the survey was a causal study because it sought to determine whether the defendants’ advertisements caused consumer confusion, and therefore required a control group. The court also found flaws in the survey’s failure to let respondents express uncertainty or instruct them not to guess. It further rejected the argument that the words “lifestyle” and “events” could not confuse respondents merely because they had patronized a strip club.

The court stated that excluding the plaintiffs’ survey evidence did not prevent them from presenting evidence of confusion through personal or anecdotal evidence.

The plaintiffs also sought reconsideration of the exclusion of their damages expert, Stephen Chamberlin. The court clarified that its main criticism was not that Chamberlin failed to give each plaintiff’s earlier contract equal weight. Instead, the court found that he failed to consider or acknowledge the plaintiffs’ earlier contracts or explain how he calculated each plaintiff’s “working day rate.” The court also found that he appeared to rely on the most lucrative contract without explaining why that approach was appropriate and failed to account for the different obligations in the contracts used for the calculations.

Defendants’ Motion Concerning Anderson

The defendants asked the court to reconsider its decision to exclude the testimony of their damages expert, Jeff Anderson. They argued that Anderson had reviewed all documentation concerning the plaintiffs’ past earnings and reasonably determined that two agreements were the most comparable.

The court disagreed. It noted that the two agreements were the only contracts produced and differed significantly: one was for $3,500 and the other was for $750. In the court’s view, using only two data points to establish a “representative range” for the damages of all 52 plaintiffs was unreasonable and produced an unreliable result.

Ruling

Judge Valerie Caproni denied the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration. The court also denied the defendants’ motion for reconsideration. The clerk was directed to close the open motions at docket entries 137 and 139.