Brown v. City of Caldwell et al
Filing
91
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER denying in part and otherwise mooting 61 Motion in Limine; denying 63 Motion in Limine; finding as moot 67 Motion in Limine. Signed by Judge B. Lynn Winmill. (caused to be mailed to non Registered Participants at the addresses listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF) by (cjm)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO
DOUGLAS A. BROWN,
Case No. 1:10-cv-00536-BLW
Plaintiff,
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND
ORDER
v.
CITY OF CALDWELL, a subdivision of
the state of Idaho,
Defendant.
INTRODUCTION
The Court has before it Plaintiff Douglas Brown’s motion in limine (Dkt. 61), as
well Defendant City of Caldwell’s two motions in limine (Dkts. 63&67).1 The parties
have been able to reach an agreement on many of these issues. For those issues that
remain the Court will deny both Brown and the City’s motions in limine.
1
Plaintiff has also noted his objections to certain exhibits. The Court has reviewed those
objections and will make those determinations as the exhibits are introduced.
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 1
ANALYSIS
1. Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine
Brown asks the Court to preclude the City “from introducing, referencing,
mentioning, or commenting on any alleged reason or basis for terminating Plaintiff’s
employment other than those identified on the November 18, 2009, Notice of
Termination.” Pl.’s Br. at 2. Brown maintains that the City has identified all the reasons
for terminating Brown in this termination notice, and therefore evidence of any other
reason would be irrelevant under Federal Rule of Evidence 401.
The Court disagrees. As the City correctly notes, it is not required to show that
Brown’s termination was only for those reasons set forth in the notice. Instead, it only
must show that Brown was not terminated for some unlawful reason. If the City now
claims that it terminated Brown for reasons not specifically articulated in the notice, it
may present evidence to support those alternative reasons. Conversely, Brown may argue
to the jury that City officials must be fabricating these new reasons because they did not
list them in the termination notice. This does not mean, however, that the new reasons
would be inadmissible.
2. Defendant’s Motion in Limine
Brown has stipulated regarding two of the City’s motions in limine: (1) Brown
will not mention his own bankruptcy at trial; and (2) Brown will not refer to the
Defendant’s insurer (ICRMP) at trial. In addition, the parties have already stipulated to
removing the officially named individual parties, and this Court has entered an order
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 2
effectuating that stipulation. Thus, the only remaining issue raised by the City relates to
damages under the Idaho Whistleblower Act.
The City of Caldwell asks the Court to preclude plaintiff Douglas Brown from
introducing evidence of “various non-economic damages” and special damages allegedly
arising from Brown’s whistleblower claim. The City has indicated some specific
evidence it is concerned about with regard to the special damages, including evidence of
money Brown spent (1) trying to find a job, (2) moving to Georgia, (3) renting a storage
unit in Boise, (4) paying a bankruptcy attorney, and (5) buying a car, or more
specifically, borrowing money to buy a car. See Mot. Mem., Dkt. 61-1.
The Court will deny this motion.
A.
Idaho’s Whistleblower Act
Under Idaho Code Section 6-2105, employees alleging whistleblower claims may
sue for “appropriate injunctive relief or actual damages, or both, . . . .” I.C. § 6-2105(2).
Within this same section, “damages” is defined to include “damages for injury or loss
caused by each violation of this chapter.” Idaho Code § 6-2105(1). Nothing in this
language restricts plaintiffs from seeking non-economic or other special damages.
The City, however, argues that the very next section of the Whistleblower Act –
Idaho Code Section 6-2106 – prevents plaintiffs from recovering non-economic and other
special damages. Section 6-2106 lists specific things a court “may” order in rendering a
judgment whistleblower claims, including (1) injunctive relief; (2) reinstatement; (3)
compensation for “lost wages, benefits, and other remuneration”; (4) costs and attorneys’
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 3
fees; and (5) civil fines.2 The City contends that the types of relief listed here are
exclusive and the only types a plaintiff may seek – notwithstanding the broad definition
of damages in the previous section. The City attempts to avoid Section 6-2105’s broad
definition of damages by arguing that Section 6-2106 is a more specific and, therefore,
must prevail over the more general definition of damages set out in Section 6-2105.
What the City is really doing, however, is asking the Court to ignore Idaho Code
Section 6-2105, while focusing solely on Section 6-2106. This violates two cardinal
rules of statutory construction. First, “[t]he Court must construe a statute as a whole, and
consider all sections of applicable statutes together to determine the intent of the
legislature.” Davaz v. Priest River Glass Co., 870 P.2d 1292, 1295 (Idaho 1994) (internal
citation omitted). Second, Courts must “give a statute an interpretation that will not
render it a nullity.” State v. Nelson, 807 P.2d 1282, 1285 (Idaho Ct. App. 1991). By
allowing plaintiffs to seek recovery for non-economic and special damages, the Court
2
In full, Idaho Code § 6-2105 provides:
A court, in rendering a judgment brought under this chapter, may order any or all of the
following:
(1) An injunction to restrain continued violation of the provisions of this act;
(2) The reinstatement of the employee to the same position held before the adverse
action, or to an equivalent position;
(3) The reinstatement of full fringe benefits and seniority rights;
(4) The compensation for lost wages, benefits and other remuneration;
(5) The payment by the employer of reasonable costs and attorneys' fees
(6) An assessment of a civil fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500), which
shall be submitted to the state treasurer for deposit in the general fund.
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 4
views Section 6-2105 and Section 6-2106 together, in context, and, ultimately gives
effect to both – not just Section 6-2106.
The Court also finds the City’s comparison of Idaho’s Whistleblower Act to
Florida’s unpersuasive. The City points out that the Florida Whistleblower Act has the
same type of list contained in Section 6-2106 – regarding the types of relief courts “may”
order. Compare I.C. § 6-2106 with Fla. Stat. § 448.103(2)(a) to (e). But unlike Idaho’s
list, which does not say anything about a plaintiff’s ability to recover compensatory
damages, Florida expressly states that a court may order “[a]ny other compensatory
damages allowable at law.” Fla. Stat. § 448.103(2)(e). The City thus concludes that “the
Florida legislature clearly intended to provide for broader coverage than is contemplated
in Idaho, . . . .” City Mot. Mem., Dkt. 61-1, at 6-7.
The Court, however, believe the City’s analysis is flawed. A closer look at the
Florida and Idaho Whistleblower Acts shows that both say essentially the same thing
about the damages a plaintiff may recover in a whistleblower action – just in different
ways.
First, both acts have an “employee-remedy” section and a “relief” section. The
remedy section says employees can sue for violations of the whistleblower act, and it also
say what they can seek. Idaho’s “remedy” section is Section 6-2105, and its “relief”
section is Section 6-2106. Florida, however, puts both sections together in one statute
with two sub-divisions – Florida Statute § 448.103(1) and (2) – entitled “Employee’s
remedy; relief.”
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 5
The difference in the remedy sections of Florida’s and Idaho’s Whistleblower Acts
is mainly structural – not substantive. That is, Idaho’s remedy section itself states that
employees may sue for “injunctive relief or actual damages, or both, . . . .” I.C. § 6-2105,
while Florida’s remedy section just refers readers to the relief section, indicating that
employees may sue “for relief as set forth in sub-section (2) [the relief section] . . . .”
(emphasis added). So in the Florida statute, the reader has to jump to the relief section to
figure out that employees can sue for compensatory damages. Idaho already said that in
its remedy section, so the fact that a plaintiff’s ability to seek actual damages for injury or
loss is not restated in Idaho’s relief section is irrelevant.
The Court ultimately concludes that if the Idaho legislature wanted to restrict
whistleblower plaintiffs to the remedies listed in Section 6-2106, it would have said
exactly that. In that regard, it is useful to compare Idaho’s whistleblower statute to New
York’s. The New York whistleblower statute has a “relief” section almost identical to
Idaho’s – and neither lists compensatory damages as part of the relief that may be
ordered. Compare I.C. § 6-2106(1) to (6) with N.Y. Labor Law § 740(5)(a) to (e)
(McKinney). But the two states’ “remedy” sections are sharply different. Whereas the
Idaho statute broadly states that employees alleging violations “may bring a civil action
for appropriate injunctive relief, or damages, or both,” the New York statute expressly
states that plaintiffs can obtain only those types of relief set out in the “relief” section.
See N.Y. Labor Law § 740(4)(a). So if the Court were construing a statute similar to
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 6
New York’s, the City’s argument would be more persuasive. But Idaho’s Whistleblower
Act is simply not susceptible to the meaning the City gives it.
To the contrary, the Court reads Idaho’s relief section as expanding, rather than
restricting, the types of relief available in a whistleblower action. The relief section
makes clear that, in addition to traditional remedies, a court may order other remedies
above and beyond those generally available to tort plaintiffs . A good example is the
language that gives the trial court authority to order reinstatement, including
reinstatement of full fringe benefits and seniority rights. Reinstatement is not a remedy
commonly available to tort plaintiffs. The Court therefore does not agree that Idaho’s
legislature intended the relief section to limit the types of traditional compensatory
damages available for Whistleblower Act violations.
B. Pleading Special Damages
Alternatively, the City says Brown should be precluded from introducing evidence
of the “special damages” itemized above (expenses related to looking for a job, moving,
renting a storage unit, filing bankruptcy, and buying a car) because these damages were
not specifically listed in the complaint. Again, the Court is not persuaded.
Under federal pleading standards, “[g]eneral damages typically are those
elements of injury that are the proximate and foreseeable consequence of defendant’s
conduct. Special damages are those elements of damages that are the natural, but not the
necessary or usual, consequence of defendant’s conduct, and typically stem from and
depend upon the particular circumstances of the case.” 5A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 7
R. Miller et al. Federal Practice & Procedure § 1310 (3d ed. 2005) (internal footnote
citations omitted). Unless the existence of special damages is an essential ingredient of
plaintiff’s claim for relief, “the purpose of requiring that special damages be specifically
pleaded is to protect the defendant against being surprised at trial by the extent and
character of the plaintiff’s claim.” Id.; see also Tipton v. Mill Creek Gravel, Inc., 373
F.3d 913, 922 n.10 (8th Cir. 2004). Consequently, where the alleged special damages are
not an essential element of the underlying claim, “considerable liberality is the
appropriate principle of construction” in assessing the sufficiency of these allegations.
Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1311.
Here, in the prayer for relief, plaintiff requested “general and special” damages.
These minimal allegations arguably put the City on notice that plaintiff would be seeking
special damages. But even assuming they did not, the purpose of the pleading rule has
been served: it appears discovery was conducted on these specific types of damages and
the City is not claiming it will be surprised at trial by introduction of such evidence. The
Court will therefore deny the motion in limine based on alleged pleading deficiency.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. Defendant’s Motion in Limine (Dkt. 61) is DENIED in part, and
otherwise MOOT.
2. Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine (Dkt. 63) is DENIED.
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 8
3. Defendant’s Motion in Limine re Insurance Coverage (Dkt. 67) is
MOOT.
DATED: October 1, 2012
_________________________
B. Lynn Winmill
Chief Judge
United States District Court
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 9
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