Cerveceria Modelo de Mexico, S. de R.L. de C.V. v. CB Brand Strategies, LLC

What the order addressed

The court ruled on the parties’ motions in limine, which are requests to limit or exclude evidence before trial. The motions concerned proposed expert testimony and opinions.

Plaintiffs’ motions

- The motion to exclude Michael Kallenberger’s opinions, report, and testimony was granted in part and denied in part. The court granted the motion as to his proposed affirmative testimony and denied it without prejudice as to his proposed rebuttal testimony. The court stated that the explanation would appear in a separate order. - The motion to exclude John D. Messinger’s opinions, report, and testimony was granted. The court ruled that Opinions 1 through 4 were not proper subjects for expert testimony and that Opinion 5 was irrelevant. It explained that the contents of federal and state statutes and regulations are matters of law, which the court could address in jury instructions or through an agreed stipulation. - The motion to exclude Travis Rupp’s opinions, report, and testimony was denied without prejudice. The court stated that the explanation would appear in a separate order.

Defendants’ motions

- The motion to exclude Neal Fortin’s opinions, report, and testimony was granted. His proposed testimony was intended as rebuttal to Messinger’s testimony, which the court excluded, and the court also found that his opinions were not proper subjects for expert testimony. - The motion to exclude David Reibstein’s opinions, report, and testimony was granted. The court found the proposed testimony irrelevant to whether Corona Hard Seltzer and Modelo Ranch Water could reasonably be understood by consumers in the United States to imply an origin other than Mexico. The court said the sublicense’s question whether the products qualified as “Mexican-style Beers” did not turn on consumer perception years after the sublicense was negotiated. It also found the use of Corona Extra as a survey benchmark problematic because the sublicense did not require comparison with Corona Extra or other plaintiffs’ products. - The motion concerning Kenneth Elzinga was granted as to his opinion that the sublicense was designed to address United States Department of Justice concerns about competition in the beer market, because that was not a proper subject for expert testimony. It was also granted as to his third and fourth opinions because they were irrelevant. The motion was denied as to his first opinion to the extent he could testify about general federal antitrust regulation and conclusions based on Department of Justice documents, including the complaint and Competitive Impact Statement in the ABI matter, if the court determined that testimony would assist the jury. The court required a limiting instruction stating that those documents would not be admitted for the truth of their statements, but only to provide context for the sublicense. Elzinga could not testify about the Department of Justice’s 2020 correspondence with defendants. The court also stated that he could be called during plaintiffs’ main presentation of evidence. - The motion to exclude Ray Daniels and Michael Mitaro’s testimony about the meaning of “versions” was granted. The parties agreed that the plain-English meaning of “version” should apply. Mitaro’s proposed testimony was also excluded because it was intended as rebuttal to Kallenberger’s and Messinger’s testimony, both of which had been excluded. - The motion barring plaintiffs’ experts from interpreting the sublicense for the jury or testifying about the states of mind of the parties, regulatory agencies, or consumers was denied as moot as to Mitaro, Reibstein, and Fortin because the court had excluded their proposed testimony. It was granted as to Shellhammer and Daniels. It was denied as to Elzinga to the extent his testimony was admissible under the court’s ruling on his testimony. The court stated that experts could not testify about what the law requires or about the intent, motives, or states of mind of corporations, regulatory agencies, or other people or entities.

Disposition and classification

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan resolved the identified evidence motions with the specific grants, denials, partial ruling, and mootness ruling described above. This was an evidentiary, pretrial order; it did not decide which side would prevail on the underlying dispute. The appropriate classification is procedural_order.