North Houston Pole Line and its employee Ryan James Nolan were granted mandamus relief after a lower court excluded evidence in a personal injury lawsuit where they are being sued for a woman’s injuries.
On Jan. 9, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District at Beaumont reversed the ruling, stating the 58th District Court of Jefferson County erred in when it excluded the evidence, which was data from Meagan Amber Martinez ‘s car (the woman the accident) obtained without her permission.
While NHPL and Nolan argued that Martinez can have her own experts look at the data, Martinez accused them of acting in bad faith when illegally obtaining the information. Interestingly enough, the judges, Chief Justice Steve McKeithen, Justices Charles Kreger and Leanne Johnson, pointed the finger at NHPL and Nolan’s lawyer.
“The trial court could have disbelieved counsel’s explanation of why [NHPL and Nolan’s] counsel believed he did not need to secure the owner’s consent or a court order, but the trial court should have imposed a sanction upon only the offender (the attorney) and should have considered and explained that it considered lesser sanctions before imposing sanctions that severely preclude a party’s ability to present the merits of claims,” the judges determined.
They determined that the lower court went too far and striking anything related to the data gathered from the case, instead of evaluating other ways to possibly hand down a lesser sanction.
Martinez insists that the lower court did the right thing because the data was taken from her car without her permission and allegedly in bad faith. But the judges noted that to prove bad faith was a factor, Martinez would have to show that NHPL and Nolan’s conduct was with the intent to hide or destroy discoverable evidence, which was not the case as NHPL and Nolan not only insisted they didn’t destroy evidence but said Martinez’s own experts can evaluate it.
The judges lifted the stay and conditionally granted NHPL and Nolan’s mandamus petition.
Martinez sued NHPL and Nolan after she was injured in the accident, which she said Nolan’s negligence caused. NHPL and Nolan had an expert get data from an event data recorder in Martinez’s car (without her consent). The data showed that she was allegedly going 93 mph four seconds before the accident. The defendants also deposed an eyewitness, who said Martinez was going at the normal speed. The lower court struck the expert and their report as a discovery sanction, and anything related to the data, and the appeals court reversed.