Abouelmakarem v. MDNMA INC.

Background

Nader Abouelmakarem filed five requests asking the court to limit evidence at trial. He sought to exclude evidence concerning all 22 affirmative defenses in the defendants’ answer, documents and information that the defendants allegedly produced late during discovery, testimony from certain current or former employees, invoices from 2020 onward, and evidence of his citizenship or immigration status. The defendants opposed the motion.

The court explained that a motion in limine is a request for an advance ruling about whether particular evidence may be used at trial. Such rulings are preliminary and may change as the trial develops. Evidence should be excluded at this stage only when it is clearly inadmissible on every potential ground.

Rulings on Earlier Orders and Defenses

The court had already barred the defendants from offering invoices at trial in a February 13, 2023 order. In a May 18, 2023 order, it had barred documents not timely produced to the plaintiff during discovery and struck the defendants’ affirmative defenses.

The court therefore granted the second and fourth motions to the extent they sought to prevent the defendants from offering the barred invoices or other late-produced documents at trial. But it denied the first, second, and fourth motions to the extent they sought to exclude all testimony or evidence relating to the defenses, documents, or invoices. The court stated that testimony may be relevant even when the related document cannot be admitted. It also noted that the normal rules against hearsay and other federal evidence rules still apply.

Because the affirmative defenses had been struck, the defendants could not offer or obtain testimony or evidence solely relevant to those defenses. However, the May order did not give the plaintiff judgment as a matter of law or remove his burden to prove the elements of his claims. The court therefore denied the first motion to the extent it sought to exclude evidence relevant to whether the plaintiff was an employee, whether the defendants were employers, whether he worked overtime, and whether he was properly paid. The court identified personal jurisdiction, the statute of limitations, unclean hands, failure to pay or arrange rent, laches, and executive-exemption status as defenses included in the answer that had been struck.

Undisclosed Witnesses

The defendants’ joint pretrial order identified Abdul Hussain, Zahidur Rahman, and Mustafijur Rahman as witnesses they intended to call. The court found that these individuals were not identified in the defendants’ initial disclosures, that the defendants had not provided their names and last known addresses, and that the defendants had offered no justification for that failure. The plaintiff had been substantially prejudiced because he could not depose them. The court found the discovery violations serious, concluded that a continuance was not realistically available, and determined that no remedy short of exclusion would cure the prejudice.

The court granted the third motion to the extent it sought to prevent the defendants from calling those three individuals as witnesses in the defendants’ case-in-chief. It denied the motion to the extent it sought to bar all evidence concerning current or former employees. The defendants could testify about those employees and question the plaintiff about matters involving them, including by name; they simply could not call the undisclosed employees as witnesses in their case at trial.

Citizenship and Immigration Status

The court granted the fifth motion and excluded all testimony and evidence concerning the plaintiff’s citizenship and immigration status. It found that evidence irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial under Federal Rule of Evidence 403.

Disposition

The court ordered that the plaintiff’s motions in limine were GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. It directed the clerk to close Docket No. 93.