United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
HONORABLE ROSEMARY MARQUEZ, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Pending
before the Court is Defendant Get Air LLC’s
(“GALLC”) Motion to Bifurcate Trial. (Doc. 329.)
The Motion is fully briefed. (Docs. 334, 336.) For the
reasons that follow, the Motion will be partially granted as
set forth below.[1]
I.
Background
The
procedural history of the above-captioned matter dates back
to January 2015; the Court will summarize only the portions
of that history that are relevant to the pending Motion to
Bifurcate.
Plaintiff
Blake Haines alleges that on September 8, 2013, he suffered a
catastrophic cervical injury resulting in paralysis while
attempting a multiple flip into a foam pit at a Tucson,
Arizona trampoline park known as Get Air Tucson. (Doc. 84 at
1-2, 4, 10.)[2] On March 1, 2016, GALLC moved for its
dismissal from this action for lack of personal jurisdiction
pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2), arguing
that it is a Utah company, that it has conducted no business
in Arizona, and that it was not involved in the design,
construction, or operation of the trampoline park at which
Plaintiff was injured. (Doc. 97.) On February 13, 2017,
Magistrate Judge Eric J. Markovich issued a Report and
Recommendation, recommending that this Court deny
GALLC’s Motion to Dismiss. (Doc. 158.) Judge Markovich
found that Plaintiff had established a prima facie
case of personal jurisdiction because there was evidence
indicating that GALLC created a generic employee handbook for
use at other Get Air trampoline parks and Plaintiff’s
claims arose from allegedly defective safety rules contained
in that employee handbook. (Id. at 15-17) This Court
adopted Judge Markovich’s Report and Recommendation,
finding that there was “a factual dispute
regarding” whether the generic employee handbook had
been created on behalf of GALLC or another company called
Trampoline Parks, LLC, and that Judge Markovich had
“appropriately resolved the factual dispute in
Plaintiff’s favor” for purposes of a Rule
12(b)(2) motion to dismiss resolved without an evidentiary
hearing. (Doc. 172 at 6.)
GALLC
thereafter moved for summary judgment (Doc. 238), and Judge
Markovich issued a Report and Recommendation, recommending
that summary judgment be granted as to Plaintiff’s
punitive damages claim but otherwise denied (Doc. 266). In
adopting that Report and Recommendation, this Court found-in
relevant part- that GALLC’s “undertaking to
create safety rules for other Get Air trampoline parks”
in a generic employee handbook gave rise to a “duty to
exercise reasonable care in the development of the safety
rules” contained in that handbook. (Doc. 276 at 3-6.)
Motions
in limine have been resolved and this action has been
scheduled for a two-week jury trial commencing November 5,
2019. (Doc. 300; see also Docs. 318, 321.)
II.
Standard of Review
Pursuant
to Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court
may, “[f]or convenience, to avoid prejudice, or to
expedite and economize . . . order a separate trial of one or
more separate issues . . . .” Fed.R.Civ.P. 42(b). Rule
42 “confers broad discretion” upon district
courts, Hangarter v. Provident Life & Accident Ins.
Co., 373 F.3d 998, 1021 (9th Cir. 2004) (internal
quotation omitted), and clearly authorizes district courts
“to separate trials into liability and damage phases,
” Estate of Diaz v. City of Anaheim, 840 F.3d
592, 601 (9th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation omitted).
Bifurcation is appropriate “to avoid the risk of
prejudice, ” Estate of Diaz, 840 F.3d at 601,
or to “permit deferral of costly and possibly
unnecessary proceedings pending resolution of potentially
dispositive preliminary issues, ” Jinro Am. Inc. v.
Secure Investments, Inc., 266 F.3d 993, 998 (9th Cir.
2001).
III.
Discussion
GALLC
argues that bifurcation of the trial in this matter into
separate liability and damage phases would prevent unfair
prejudice to GALLC, promote judicial economy, and not result
in any prejudice to Plaintiff. (Doc. 329 at 1.) GALLC argues
that liability in this case is hotly contested and that the
liability issues are “nuanced and complex, ”
requiring the jury to determine (1) whether GALLC
“tried to influence the safety protocols at a park in
another state, ” (2) whether the employee monitoring
the foam pits at the time of Plaintiff’s injury would
have attempted to prevent Plaintiff from performing a
multiple flip had the employee handbook contained a
prohibition on that maneuver; and (3) whether Plaintiff would
have stopped before attempting the maneuver if the employee
had intervened. (Id. at 2-3.) GALLC argues that
“this extended liability analysis will be unfairly
overshadowed” by detailed, lengthy, and emotional
descriptions of Plaintiff’s alleged damages, creating a
substantial risk the jury will determine liability based on
sympathy and emotion. (Id. at 3, 5-6.) GALLC further
argues that Plaintiff’s injury and damages “have
absolutely nothing to do with liability” since GALLC
admits that Plaintiff’s injury was caused “by an
unsuccessful triple flip maneuver.” (Id. at
4-5.) Finally, GALLC argues that bifurcation will promote
judicial economy because it may eliminate the need for
extensive evidence and testimony concerning Plaintiff’s
injury and damages. (Id. at 7-8.)
In
response, Plaintiff argues that none of the justifications
for bifurcation exist in this case, and that GALLC’s
Motion hinges upon inaccurately portraying “an enormous
gap between the strength of liability and the severity of
damages.” (Doc. 334 at 1-2.) Plaintiff argues that his
liability theory is easily understandable and that the jury
will not be tasked with determining whether GALLC tried to
influence the safety protocols at Get Air Tucson because that
issue was already decided in the context of GALLC’s
jurisdictional challenge. (Id. at 2-3, 5-10.)
Plaintiff also argues that issues of liability and injury are
intertwined, as Plaintiff will present expert testimony that
his injury is “the result of the very reason” why
the employee handbook should have included a “rule
against double or triple flips.” (Id. at 2,
8.) Plaintiff also avers that multiple lay witnesses who will
testify to his injury will also provide testimony
establishing that he would have heeded a warning against
performing multiple flips into the foam pits. (Id.
at 8-9.) Plaintiff argues that bifurcation will not result in
any savings in litigation costs, time, and judicial resources
and that any risk of prejudice to GALLC can be mitigated with
jury instructions. (Id. at 9-11.) Finally, Plaintiff
argues that bifurcation would prejudice him by creating a
subtle incentive for the jury to return a defense verdict if
it is informed of the bifurcation, or by causing unfair
surprise to the jury if it is not so informed. (Id.
at 9, 11.)
In its
Reply, GALLC argues that whether it or Trampoline Parks, LLC
prepared a generic employee handbook for wider dissemination
to other Get Air trampoline parks is a disputed issue of
material fact, and that the Court’s summary judgment
finding on the existence of a duty did not take that disputed
preliminary factual issue from the jury. (Doc. 336 at 5-8.)
GALLC also continues to argue that other liability
issues-including whether the Get Air Tucson employee
monitoring the foam pits at the time of Plaintiff’s
injury would have enforced a rule against multiple flips if
the employee handbook had contained one-are hotly contested.
(Id. at 8-10.) GALLC maintains that this action is a
classic case for bifurcation because Plaintiff’s
damages are severe, the liability evidence is wholly separate
from the emotionally charged evidence of damages, and jury
instructions will be ineffective in preventing unfair
prejudice to GALLC. (Id. at 2-3.)
A.
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