De La Cruz v. Ekstrom

545 P.3d 285

2024 UT App 18

Alejandra DE LA CRUZ, Appellant,

v.Angela EKSTROM, Appellee.

No. 20220702-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed February 15, 2024

Third District Court, Salt Lake Department, The Honorable Amber M. Mettler, No. 200906776

Eric B. Vogeler, Salt Lake City, Jeffrey J. Steele, Chase A. Adams, Layton, Justin M. Hosman, and Alyssa J. Wood, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellant

Byron G. Martin and Steven M. Edmonds, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellee

Judge Michele M, Christiansen Forster authored this Opinion, in which Judge Ryan D. Tenney concurred. Judge Ryan M. Harris concurred, with opinion.

Opinion

CHRISTIANSEN FORSTER, Judge:

¶1 In early 2019, Angela Ekstrom was involved in a car accident when she collided with Alejandra De La Cruz, who was injured in the accident. Twenty months later, De La Cruz filed suit against Ekstrom seeking damages related to the accident. In her initial damages claim, De La Cruz sought a total of approximately $11,000, an amount that would cover the costs of her past medical treatment. A week before the close of fact discovery, however, De La Cruz served supplemental disclosures, seeking—for the first time—more than $70,000 in damages for "future special damages." In response, Ekstrom asked the district court to exclude De La Cruz’s supplemental disclosures. The court granted the motion, and found the disclosures untimely, harmful, and undertaken without good cause. De La Cruz now appeals, asserting that the court’s exclusion of the evidence of her claim for future special damages was an abuse of discretion. For the reasons discussed, we reject De La Cruz’s arguments and affirm the court’s ruling.

BACKGROUND

¶2 In February 2019, De La Cruz and Ekstrom were involved in a car accident. Several days later, De La Cruz sought treatment from a chiropractor for her injuries sustained in the accident, but she did not otherwise seek emergency medical care.

¶3 In October 2020, De La Cruz filed suit against Ekstrom, seeking recovery of damages to compensate her for her injuries. In her complaint, De La Cruz requested, among other things, "past, present, and future special damages including medical expenses, consequential damages, lost wages and future care, if applicable." De La Cruz served her initial disclosures in late December 2020, indicating that her entire special damages claim consisted of approximately $11,000 for the costs of medical treatment she had already incurred. During discovery, Ekstrom asked De La Cruz to identify and describe "every category and amount of damages [she was] claiming," together with a computation of damages. De La Cruz’s response to this request was to refer Ekstrom "to her initial disclosures and complaint filed in this matter."

¶4 In May 2021, Ekstrom deposed De La Cruz. During the deposition, De La Cruz testified to continued mild shoulder pain. Later that same month, Ekstrom asked the court to order that De La Cruz submit to a medical examination pursuant to rule 35 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, which De La Cruz opposed because at least some of the injuries she had sustained in the accident had resolved. Specifically, in her opposition to the rule 35 motion, De La Cruz claimed that "[i]t is unclear what a physical examination of a body part that no longer experiences symptoms related to the collision will do to aid [Ekstrom] in her investigation." After hearing arguments on the motion, the district court ordered De La Cruz to submit to the examination. After numerous delays, that examination took place in December 2021, conducted by Ekstrom’s retained medical expert. Sometime before January 2022, De La Cruz had hired her own medical expert. That expert later evaluated De La Cruz and provided a report to her at the end of January.

¶5 In early February 2022, Ekstrom produced her rule 35 examination report. Several days later, De La Cruz served Ekstrom with a supplemental disclosure indicating—for the first time—that she was seeking "future special damages" for the "future costs of treatment to be incurred" in connection with shoulder surgery, estimated to be $73,500. This disclosure did not identify any documents or witnesses that would support the claim and stated that "the disclosure is based upon estimations and will be further detailed through expert discovery." Then, on Febru- ary 22, 2022, the last day of fact discovery, De La Cruz requested a thirty-day discovery extension so that her expert could review the rule 35 report and Ekstrom’s deposition transcript. The district court granted the extension request.

¶6 Two days before, the end of the extended discovery period, De La Cruz filed a second supplemental disclosure claiming future special damages of $57,591. In support of her updated future special damages disclosure, De La Cruz filed an expert disclosure identifying both her medical expert and a life care planner as retained experts and provided their expert reports. Ekstrom filed a motion to exclude De La Cruz’s future medical expense evidence, asserting that De La Cruz had failed to comply with her pretrial disclosure obligations. In response, De La Cruz argued that (1) her supplemental disclosures were timely and sufficient; (2) if the disclosures were untimely, any late disclosure was harmless; and (3) she had good cause for any untimely disclosure.

¶7 After full briefing and oral argument, the district court ruled in favor of Ekstrom and found De La Cruz’s supplemental disclosures to be untimely. The court noted that this case exemplifies

precisely why the Rules require early disclosure of damages—a party necessarily litigates a case involving roughly $11,000 in past medical expenses plus pain and suffering materially differently than a case worth nearly $70,000 in special damages (plus pain and suffering), and reasonably so. … [A] party should not have to litigate a case twice.

¶8 In its ruling, the court also examined whether De La Cruz’s untimely disclosures were harmless. The court determined that Ekstrom was harmed by De La Cruz’s failure to identify any future medical expenses early because Ekstrom "created and executed on a discovery and litigation plan that included taking written and deposition discovery proportional to the amount at issue and retaining an expert who is board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation, not an orthopedic surgeon." The court further concluded that De La Cruz had not shown good cause for the untimely disclosures, because it was her own delay in investigating her damages before filing her complaint that caused the problem:

If a party intends to seek to recover damages that will require expert testimony, a party is required to do the investigation necessary in order to satisfy the requirement of rule 26 [of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure], and such investigation might very well necessitate consulting with an expert early in the case.

The court therefore excluded De La Cruz’s future damages-related evidence. De La Cruz appeals.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶9 The issue in this case is whether the district court exceeded its discretion in excluding the evidence contained in De La Cruz’s supplemental damage disclosures based on its determinations that those disclosures were not timely, that the late disclosure was not harmless, and that De La Cruz had not shown good cause for the delay.

[1, 2] ¶10 "As a general rule, we grant district courts a great deal of deference in matters of discovery and review discovery orders for abuse of discretion." Dahl v. Dahl, 2015 UT 79, ¶ 63, 459 P.3d 276. In particular, we review for abuse of discretion district court rulings regarding timeliness, harmlessness, and good cause. See Sleepy Holdings LLC v. Mountain West Title, 2016 UT App 62, ¶ 24, 370 P.3d 963; see also Supernova Media, Inc. v. Pia Anderson Dorius Reynard & Moss, LLC, 2013 UT 7, ¶ 15, 297 P.3d 599 (reviewing a district court’s timeliness determination for abuse of discretion).

[3] ¶11 Ultimately, as long as the court’s decision "was within the broad range of discretion entrusted to" trial judges, even if "we think the trial judge made the wrong call" we will affirm because "it was, in its essence, a discretionary call." Gunn Hill Dairy Props., LLC v. Los Angeles Dep’t of Water & Power, 2015 UT App 261, ¶ 24, 361 P.3d 703 (Orme, J., concurring), cert. denied, 369 P.3d 451 (Utah 2016). It matters not whether "one or more members of this panel might have handled the matter differently," see Hansen v. Kurry Jensen Props. LLC, 2021 UT App 54, ¶ 25, 493 P.3d 1131, but only whether the decision was "an abuse of discretion," and thus "we will reverse only if there is no reasonable basis for the district court’s decision," see Berger v. Ogden Reg’l Med. Center, 2020 UT App 85, ¶ 15, 469 P.3d 1127 (quotation simplified), cert. denied, 474 P.3d 944 (Utah 2020).

ANALYSIS

¶12 The Utah Rules of Civil Procedure sets forth clearly defined directions for the discovery process. Rule 26(a)(1)(C) requires the plaintiff to serve on the other party, "without waiting for a discovery request, … a computation of any damages claimed and a copy of all discoverable documents or evidentiary material on which such computation is based." And rule 26(d)(3) further elaborates that a "party is not excused from making disclosures or responses because the party has not completed investigating the case."

¶13 Importantly, "[i]f a party fails to disclose or to supplement timely a disclosure or response to discovery, that party may not use the undisclosed witness, document, or material at any hearing or trial unless the failure is harmless or the party shows good cause for the failure." Utah. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(4). See also Bodell Constr. Co. v. Robbins, 2009 UT 52, ¶ 35, 215 P.3d 933. We discuss in turn the district court’s determinations that De La Cruz’s supplemental disclosures were untimely, that the late disclosure harmed Ekstrom, and that De La Cruz had no good cause for the belated disclosures.

I. Tim...