Legal News and Appellate Tips

You have an avalanche of evidence for your upcoming trial. Document after document, email after email, photo after photo, and witness after witness promise to bury your opponent.

But are you overdoing it? Appellate attorney Stefan Love, drawing on the lessons from John Blumberg’s
Persuasion Science for Trial Lawyers, notes that “we can’t hold on to that much information at once.”

We also relate one of the studies in Blumberg’s book about some study participants who were given a series of numbers to remember and report to scientist with a clipboard at the end of the hall. The first group did fine, but the second group were confronted with one extra bit of information before they reached the fellow with the clipboard. With brains already filled to the brim, the last bit of information made the earlier information spill out.

Lesson: There is such a thing as too much evidence. Consider carefully what it is going to take to persuade, and then stop.

You trial attorneys have a job to do. That job is to win the trial. And you can’t always do that and win the appeal at the same time. So you can’t pick a fight on every point. But, you had better fight the ones that turn the case.

And, you had better make a record on it.

On this episode of the California Appellate Law Podcast, reprising Tim’s recent CLE presentation, we cover 10 tips that appellate attorneys want every trial attorney to know:

💡 The rule that contains all appellate rules: Make the Record.

👉#1 Make sure your theories of the case are captured in your pleadings

👉#2 Was key evidence excluded? Preserve the issue by making a proffer.

👉#3 Keep objecting to evidence if the judge “defers” ruling on your MIL.

👉#4 Object to Jury Instructions

👉#5 Review the Verdict for Inconsistences

👉#6 Request and Object to the Statement of Decision

👉#7 File a motion for new trial to preserve challenges to the damages amount …and Watch out for JNOVs!

👉#8 Calculate Appellate Deadlines Correctly

👉#9 Avoid Common Appellate Briefing Mistakes

👉#10 Advise your client about important post-judgment issues (Attorney fees and costs; SLAPP fees; Bonds and Stays of Judgment-Enforcement; Post-judgment interest)

💡 Evergreen Tip: Get a Court Reporter!

Last week I presented my talk “Ten Trial Tips from an Appellate Specialist” to the San Francisco Lawyers Network (Feb. 16, 2023).

Here are the tips:

Rule Zero: Make the Record

#1 Make sure your theories of the case are captured in your pleadings

#2 Was key evidence excluded? Preserve the issue by making a proffer.

#3 Keep objecting to evidence if the judge “defers” ruling on your MIL.

#4 Object to Jury Instructions

#5 Review the Verdict for Inconsistences

#6 Request and Object to the Statement of Decision

#7 File a motion for new trial to preserve challenges to the damages amount …and Watch out for JNOVs!

#8 Calculate Appellate Deadlines Correctly

#9 Avoid Common Appellate Briefing Mistakes

#10 Advise your client about important post-judgment issues (Attorney fees and costs; SLAPP fees; Bonds and Stays of Judgment-Enforcement; Post-judgment interest)

Evergreen Tip: Get a Court Reporter!

You may download a PDF of my slideshow by clicking through to the full article.

Thank you to my colleagues who sent me their top tips!

After reviewing the science-based trial tips in John P. Blumberg’s Persuasion Science for Trial Lawyers, who would appellate specialist Stefan Love prefer as a trial consultant: a social scientist? Or a TV writer?

A social scientist can tell you, with citations to studies, why this or that strategy is likely to work. But gifted storytellers have captured imaginations, even if they can’t say quite how or why their stories work.

Civil trial attorneys have an industry secret. Say you are suing over an unpaid loan. If the borrower never intended to pay back the loan, that’s not only a breach of contract, it’s a form of theft by false pretenses. And under Penal Code section 496, civil theft is punishable by treble damages and attorney fees. For those in on the secret, section 496 is a powerful tool in a business lawyer’s toolkit.

Civil trial attorneys have an industry secret. Say you are suing over an unpaid loan. If the borrower never intended to pay back the loan, that’s not only a breach of contract, it’s a form of theft by false pretenses. And under Penal Code section 496, civil theft is punishable by treble damages and attorney fees. For those in on the secret, section 496 is a powerful tool in a business lawyer’s toolkit.

One problem: courts really don’t like section 496. They worry that lawyers will overuse it and turn every garden-variety loan or business-tort case into a civil-theft case. So there arose a split of authority, with some cases enforcing section 496, and others refusing to enforce it.

Breaking the split, the California Supreme Court kept this powerful tool intact. In Siry Investment, L.P. v. Farkhondehpour (Cal. Jul. 21, 2022 No. S262081) 2022 WL 2840312, the Court held the civil-theft remedies under section 496 applied to a case involving diversion of partnership cash.

But the Court did not throw open the floodgates. The Court noted that the concerns expressed by section 496 naysayers do “give pause.” And Justice Groban, joined by Justice Kruger, concurred to note they do not read the majority as endorsing civil-theft penalties in “most consumer or commercial transactions.”

If you have a civil case involving fraud that amounts to something akin to theft by false pretenses, consider seeking remedies under Penal Code section 496(c). Do not get too creative. But under Siry Investments, policy concerns are no longer a valid basis to refuse to enforce section 496. **

Reviewing a recent book on persuasion trial trips based in science, Stefan Love’s conclusion is that the tips are in greater abundance than the science. True, there is much interesting science on the limits of human attention: for example, you can get a person to remember a few things, but one too many and they forget it all. But does this mean you should ditch a particular piece of secondary evidence at trial? That, as ever, still comes down to discretion and common sense.

Stefan talks with Jeff Lewis and Tim Kowal about some of the other helpful trial advice in John Blumberg’s *Persuasion Science for Trial Lawyers*, and whether it is scientific, or just common sense. Advice like:

• Excessive information can lead to worse, not better, decisions.
• Juries learn better with pictures. But avoid competition for resources: do not use written word, spoken word, and images all at the same time. It creates overload.
• You should not present all your evidence at trial, because it overloads the jury’s cognitive capacity.
• Judges who strive to run ruthlessly efficient trials should reconsider: eliminating downtime actually undermines jurors’ ability to process the information.
• For the same reason, trial lawyers should slow down, use repetition, and even stop talking every now and then.

Merely hiring a court reporter is not enough. Jimmy Azadian explains how sidebars, missed objections, proffers, and hostile judges can all present obstacles to making your trial record. Jimmy shares with co-hosts Jeff Lewis and me about how he has addressed these kinds of problems while serving as embedded appellate counsel.

What is “embedded appellate counsel”? Jimmy explains that, too. And why trial attorneys should consider having embedded appellate counsel at their next trial.

Jimmy, Tim, and Jeff then talk about why California courts, unlike federal courts, do not provide audio recordings of trials. Our courts have the equipment. A statute even provided for electronic audio recordings, as did a Judicial Council rule. But then a powerful lobby got the program permanently mothballed.

An impassioned and personal closing argument is often your chance to persuade the jury. But get too personal and you could commit a “golden rule” violation (i.e., you cannot ask the jury to “put yourself in my client’s shoes”). So hats off to the plaintiff’s attorney in Chen v. Herschel (D2d2 Mar. 2, 2022 no. B306200) 2022 WL 610658 (nonpub. opn.), who deployed a clever rhetorical device that put the jury in the plaintiff’s shoes, yet avoided a “golden rule” violation. The result was an $18 million verdict for the client.

In Chen, the defendant drove her truck into the car driven by plaintiff and her mother. The collision crushed the plaintiff’s mother, causing internal injuries that resulted in an agonizing several moments before her death. The defendant first drove away, then apparently returned, and dragged the mother several feet away, while the plaintiff, immobilized by the accident, pleaded with the defendant to stop. The mother was later transported to the hospital where she died.

The plaintiff’s closing argument, as you can imagine, sought to hit some emotional notes, and this drew a “golden rule” objection from the defense counsel. In effect, the jury heard counsel reference memories of “your” mother being killed 16 different times, and to consider what that would be like. Wasn’t this a “golden rule” violation?

No, held the court. Why? Because although counsel said “you” and “your” 16 different times, due to counsel’s shrewd rhetorical device setting up a hypothetical involving the plaintiff, all the “yous” and “yours” technically referred to the plaintiff. Not to the jurors.

A very effective argument. For which the jury returned a verdict of $18 million.

Somewhere or other most attorneys have heard that you can get attorney fees if your opponent denies a request to admit a fact and you go on to prove that fact at trial. These are called "costs of proof" fees. You probably assumed this was more trouble than it was worth. But what if I told you that you could recover nearly $239,000 in fees this way? Now it seems worth a shot, doesn't it?

That's what the defendants got in *Spahn v. Richards* (D1d3 Nov. 30, 2021) __ Cal.Rptr.3d (2021 WL 5576615, no. A159495) as costs-of-proof fees.

The RFA here went to the ultimate legal issue in the case. Not a concrete fact, but the ultimate fact to be deduced from all the evidence. I had never envisioned costs-of-proof fees to encompass substantially all of the case. But that seems to be the upshot here. And it is a lower standard than for Code of Civil Procedure section 128.5 or 128.7 sanctions, and certainly lower than for malicious prosecution. This is something to consider implementing into your case strategy.

There are a few different ways a lawsuit can end. Judgments we know about, and settlements are common. But what happens when the plaintiff just up and dismisses the lawsuit? Can the defendant get costs? And is the cost award appealable?

There is a split of authority on these questions, as noted in Thomas v. St. Joseph Health System (D4d3 Oct. 20, 2021) 2021 WL 4889873 (no. G059408) (nonpub. opn.). Seeing the writing on the wall on the defendants' motion to quash based on personal jurisdiction, the doctor-plaintiff dismissed his right-to-practice and unfair-competition lawsuit (which he would later refile in Texas). The defendants recovered the significant costs they had incurred through a number of depositions during jurisdictional discovery, and the plaintiff appealed.

The court noted a split of authority, but came down on the side of finding a cost order entered after a voluntary dismissal without prejudice is appealable as a final judgment. (But the court went on to affirm the cost order.)

The appealability holding seems to me clearly correct, with all due respect to the contrary authorities.

But I offer a few words of caution about strategic voluntary dismissals. When the "writing is on the wall" as it was in this case, authorities suggest the time to dismiss without prejudice is over.

When a jury returns a large verdict, the unhappy defendant has to file a motion for new trial to reduce the verdict. (You can't just appeal directly, or else you'd waive the excessive-damages issue.) One way to argue the damages are excessive is to demonstrate the amount is the result of passion or prejudice. And one way to demonstrate that might be to compare verdicts in similar cases.

That is what the defendant-appellant tried after it was hit with a $25 million noneconomic verdict in the mesothelioma case of Phipps v. Copeland Corp. (D2d7 May 18, 2021) 278 Cal.Rptr 3d 688 (2021 WL 1973560). The appellant compiled 15 comparable cases into a report, and submitted that with a declaration in support of its motion for a new trial. But the trial court excluded the report as irrelevant and denied the motion. On appeal, the appellant argued the trial court erred in this ruling because verdicts in other cases were relevant.

Held: The compilation of other cases was not based on "the minutes of the court" under Code of Civil Procedure section 658, and thus could not be considered as a basis to reduce damages on a motion for new trial. Affirmed.

This analysis seems harsh, but it is based on the statutes. Do not rely on declarations in a new trial motion. Support your motion based on the court minutes.

I find it noteworthy the court decided this case the way it did. The court apparently did as well, as it published the opinion. This signals a bigger uphill climb for defendants challenging large jury verdicts. This is an important reason to have appellate counsel present at trial.