Caldwell v. Officer German Geronimo

Background

The parties appeared at a hearing before trial to address issues remaining from an earlier pretrial conference. The order concerns the admissibility of portions of three exhibits and whether the jury might later receive instructions about punitive damages.

Evidence Rulings

The court admitted the following portions of Plaintiff’s exhibits for evidentiary use at trial:

- Exhibit 7: 0:00–3:15 and 5:00–6:00. - Exhibit 8: 0:00–3:35 and 4:05–4:30. - Exhibit 9: 0:00–1:06, 1:25–2:00, and 3:33–3:48.

The court excluded Exhibit 8 from 6:03–6:30 for purposes of trial, so that portion could not be offered as evidence.

Punitive Damages

Plaintiff expressed a desire to seek punitive damages, and Defendant opposed the request principally because the complaint did not allege or request punitive damages. The court found that, even construing the complaint generously because Plaintiff had been representing himself when he filed it, the complaint did not request punitive damages. The court also stated that the complaint’s request for $100,000,000, standing alone, did not amount to a request for punitive damages.

The court nevertheless concluded that deciding whether the evidence could support a punitive-damages instruction was premature before the witnesses testified. It reserved that decision until after the parties had presented all their evidence. Until then, Plaintiff’s counsel was not to mention punitive damages to the jury. The court denied Defendant’s motion to exclude a punitive-damages instruction without prejudice to renewal after the evidence closed.

Disposition

This was a pretrial and evidentiary order. It did not decide the underlying claims or whether punitive damages ultimately would be available. Judge Sarah L. Cave admitted specified evidence, excluded one excerpt, reserved the punitive-damages instruction decision, and denied Defendant’s motion without prejudice to renewal.