Zavatson v. Warren, City of et al

Filing 98

OPINION AND ORDER granting in part and denying in part 87 Defendant's Motion in Limine ; granting 88 Plaintiff's Motion in Limine. Signed by District Judge Paul D. Borman. (DTof)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
DANIEL ZAVATSON,
Case No. 14-10623
Plaintiff,
v.

Paul D. Borman
United States District Judge

City of Warren Police Officer
DONALD SEIDL,

David R. Grand
United States Magistrate Judge

Defendant.
______________________________/
OPINION AND ORDER:
(1) GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT
SEIDL’S MOTION IN LIMINE; AND
(2) GRANTING PLAINTIFF ZAVATSON’S MOTION IN LIMINE
I.

BACKGROUND

In 2013, Plaintiff Daniel Zavatson was charged with two felony larceny
counts after cash went missing from two safes in the Warren, Michigan high school
where Zavatson was employed by Fitzgerald Public Schools as a custodian. The high
school initiated its own investigation into the incident, as did the Warren Police
Department. Zavatson was fired from his job at the high school for failing to report
his arraignment on the felony charges, as Michigan law required him to do. Zavatson
was bound over at the state district court preliminary examination on one of the
criminal charges. Subsequently, that criminal charge was dismissed at the state
circuit court. Thereafter, Plaintiff Zavatson filed a complaint in this Court.

Plaintiff Daniel Zavatson’s Complaint, filed on February 10, 2014, asserted
false arrest, malicious prosecution, failure-to-train, failure-to-supervise, and
procedural-due-process claims against a total of nine Defendants. (ECF No. 1,
Compl.) Among the Defendants were the City of Warren, Michigan; Warren police
officer Donald Seidl; Zavatson’s employer Fitzgerald Public Schools (“FPS”); the
Fitzgerald Public School Board of Education; and five individual Defendants
affiliated with FPS and/or its Board of Education.
This Court granted summary judgment to all Defendants on all claims. (ECF
Nos. 66, 74.) The Sixth Circuit affirmed this Court’s grant of summary judgment as
to all Defendants except for Zavatson’s federal and state false arrest claims against
Defendant Donald Seidl, the Warren police officer who investigated the claims and
submitted the application for Zavatson’s arrest warrant to the Macomb County
prosecutor. See generally Zavatson v. City of Warren, Michigan, 714 F. App’x 512
(6th Cir. 2017) (available on the docket at ECF No. 80). This case is now proceeding
to trial on those two remaining false arrest counts. As discussed infra, those counts
encompass the two-day period between the execution of the warrant and Zavatson’s
arraignment.
Each party has filed one Motion in Limine. Defendant Seidl seeks to limit
Plaintiff Zavatson’s available damages to the two-day period between the issuance
of the arrest warrant on January 22, 2013, and his arraignment in court on that
2

warrant on January 24, 2013. The Motion seeks to preclude Zavatson from
introducing evidence of any post-arraignment events at the liability phase of trial: in
particular, subsequent lost wages and diminished earning capacity.
Zavatson requests that Seidl be barred from introducing evidence of certain
events that substantially predate the time period relevant to this case: Zavatson’s
2000 bankruptcy, a back injury he suffered in 2003 or 2004 and the related worker’s
compensation claim, and his wife’s 2002 personal-injury lawsuit.
This Court conducted a hearing on the Motions in Limine on July 17, 2018.
II.

LEGAL STANDARDS

The federal procedural and evidentiary rules that govern proceedings before
this Court, as well as the cases interpreting those rules, “all encourage, and in some
cases require, parties and the court to utilize extensive pretrial procedures –
including motions in limine – in order to narrow the issues remaining for trial and to
minimize disruptions at trial.” United States v. Brawner, 173 F.3d 966, 970 (6th Cir.
1999); see also Louzon v. Ford Motor Co., 718 F.3d 556, 560 (6th Cir. 2013) (“A
motion in limine is any motion, whether made before or during trial, to exclude
anticipated prejudicial evidence before the evidence is actually offered.” (internal
quotation marks omitted)).
“Motions in limine typically involve matters which ought to be excluded from
the jury’s consideration due to some possibility of prejudice or as a result of previous
3

rulings by the Court.” Provident Life & Acc. Ins. Co. v. Adie, 176 F.R.D. 246, 250
(E.D. Mich. 1997). District courts have broad discretion over matters involving the
admissibility of evidence at trial. See United States v. Seago, 930 F.2d 482, 494 (6th
Cir. 1991). “[I]n limine rulings are not binding on the trial judge, and the judge may
always change his mind during the course of a trial.” Ohler v. United States, 529
U.S. 753, 758 n.3 (2000) (citing Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 41-42 (1984)).
III.
A.

DISCUSSION

Seidl’s Motion in Limine
Defendant Seidl makes two distinct arguments in his Motion in Limine. First,

he contends that should Plaintiff Zavatson prevail as to his liability for false arrest,
his damages should be strictly limited to emotional-distress damages that arose
directly during that two-day period in January of 2014. Second, he contends that the
Court should bar evidence of any events that occurred after the arraignment.
1.

Limitation of damages

The following facts are undisputed: Seidl submitted the request for Zavatson’s
arrest warrant to the Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney’s office on January 18,
2013; assistant Macomb County prosecutor Heather Odgers authorized the warrant
on January 22, 2013; Zavatson was advised to turn himself in to the Warren Police
Department on January 24, 2013; Zavatson was arraigned at the Warren district court
the same day he turned himself in, and released on a $50,000 personal bond.
4

Seidl argues in his Motion in Limine that should Zavatson prevail on his false
arrest claims, his damages must be narrowly circumscribed from the period of his
arrest to his release: from the date his arrest warrant was issued (January 22, 2013)
to his arraignment and release (January 24, 2013). Seidl cites several court decisions
addressing federal false arrest claims, which held that events occurring after the
plaintiff’s arraignment are properly within the scope of a malicious prosecution
claim, rather than a false arrest claim. Seidl contends that because the Sixth Circuit
upheld this Court’s dismissal of Zavatson’s state and federal malicious prosecution
claims, Zavatson’s damages for false arrest must be “limited to one or two days of
emotional distress attributable to the arrest alone.” (Def.’s Mot. at 12, Pg ID 5847.)
In his Response, Zavatson counters that a tort claimant, whether suing under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 or on some other legal basis, is entitled to recover compensatory
damages for all injuries suffered as a consequence of the defendant’s actionable
conduct. He also cites decisions that stand for the proposition that “[a] plaintiff who
proves that police arrested him without probable cause is entitled to compensation
for the economic and non-economic damages he incurs as a proximate result of these
violations.” (Pl.’s Resp. at 11, Pg ID 5919 (alteration in original) (internal quotation
marks omitted) (quoting Barlow v. Ground, 943 F.2d 1132, 1136 (9th Cir. 1991)).)
Accordingly, Zavatson argues, he is entitled to compensation for lost wages arising
from his difficulties in obtaining employment as a result of his arrest. In that regard,
5

Zavatson has submitted a report by his retained expert witness accountant Michael
Pivoz, which calculates that Zavatson’s net lost lifetime earnings, fringe benefits,
and pension benefits total $2,678,000, with a “Discounted Amount” of $1,046,000.
(Pl.’s Resp. Ex. D, Pivoz Report.)
In his Reply, Seidl points out that it is undisputed that Zavatson was
terminated by FPS not because of his arrest but because he failed to report his felony
arraignment to FPS as he was required to do by Michigan law. Seidl also argues that
insofar as Zavatson’s lost-wage damages are due to his discharge by FPS, Seidl
himself cannot be liable for those damages, since he was not involved in the FPS
decision to terminate Zavatson, and any of the original FPS Defendants who might
have been involved in the decision were found by the Sixth Circuit not to have
violated Zavatson’s constitutional rights.
Seidl’s argument relies chiefly on the Supreme Court decision Wallace v.
Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007). In Wallace, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of
when the statute of limitations for a § 1983 false arrest or false imprisonment claim
begins to run, which itself turned on the issue of “when the alleged false
imprisonment ends.” Wallace, 549 U.S. at 389 (internal quotation marks omitted).
On this point, the Supreme Court explained:
Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of detention
without legal process, a false imprisonment ends once the victim
becomes held pursuant to such process—when, for example, he is
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bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges. Thereafter,
unlawful detention forms part of the damages for the “entirely distinct”
tort of malicious prosecution, which remedies detention accompanied,
not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal
process. “If there is a false arrest claim, damages for that claim cover
the time of detention up until issuance of process or arraignment, but
not more. From that point on, any damages recoverable must be based
on a malicious prosecution claim and on the wrongful use of judicial
process rather than detention itself.”
Id. at 389-90 (emphasis in original) (footnote omitted) (citations omitted) (quoting
W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts
§ 11, p. 54, § 119, pp. 885–886, 888 (5th ed. 1984)). As it is relevant to this case,
Wallace thus stands for the proposition that, in a § 1983 false arrest action as well as
at common law, “damages for detention after issuance of process or arraignment
would be attributable to a tort other than . . . unlawful arrest.” Id. at 391.
Zavatson, on the other hand, supports his argument by citing the recent Sixth
Circuit decision Wesley v. Campbell, 864 F.3d 433 (6th Cir. 2017). In Wesley, the
Sixth Circuit addressed (and upheld) a jury verdict in favor of a former elementary
school counselor who had been falsely arrested for child sexual abuse. Among the
issues that the Sixth Circuit confronted in Wesley was the jury’s award of
compensatory damages to the plaintiff, which included damages for “lost wages,
past pain and suffering, and future pain and suffering.” Id. at 445. On appeal, the
defendant-appellant in Wesley challenged only the $132,000 awarded in lost-wages
damages. Particularly relevant to the instant case, the defendant made two causation
7

arguments against that award: that the plaintiff’s arrest had occurred after he had
been fired from his job, and that his job was slated to be eliminated anyway due to
lack of funding. Each of these facts, the defendant-appellant argued, should have
destroyed any causal connection between the plaintiff’s arrest and his claimed lost
wages. The Sixth Circuit rejected both arguments, and quoted with approval the
district court’s rationale for denying the defendant-appellant’s motion to remit the
jury’s award of compensatory damages:
Despite the fact that Wesley’s arrest occurred after his termination, the
arrest for sexual abuse remained on his record until fall 2010. During
this time, as the testimony of [the former superintendent of Wesley’s
school system] demonstrated, it is extremely unlikely that any school
would have interviewed him for a job. Additionally, Jackson testified
that, because of the gap in his resume caused by the arrest, Wesley
would have had several hurdles to overcome in getting an interview.
The red flags caused by his false arrest, and the resulting unemployment
period, were detrimental to Wesley’s ability to be rehired in any
position, but especially in one working with children. Further, even if
Wesley was terminated from his position due to budgetary restrictions,
which, given the circumstances, the jury would have been reasonable
in considering suspect, Defendant’s arrest still caused him sufficient
harm to justify the jury’s award.
Id. at 445-46 (quoting Wesley v. Rigney, No. CV 10-51-DLB-JGW, 2016 WL
853505, at *12 (E.D. Ky. Mar. 3, 2016)). Wesley thus makes clear that a plaintiff’s
damages, including lost wages, that are a “direct result of his unlawful arrest” can
be recovered in a false arrest action under § 1983, even if the harm itself is actually
suffered after the issuance of process or the plaintiff’s arraignment. Id. at 446.
8

The decisions on which Seidl and Zavatson place their primary reliance—
Wallace and Wesley, respectively—are not in fact inconsistent with each other, and
are both consistent with established precedent regarding compensatory damages in
constitutional tort actions generally. Two principles emerge from that body of
precedent. The first is that in a § 1983 action, “‘compensatory damages may include
not only out-of-pocket loss and other monetary harms, but also such injuries as
impairment of reputation, personal humiliation, and mental anguish and
suffering.’ . . . Where any harm is shown, . . . damages proportionate to that harm
should be awarded.” Chatman v. Slagle, 107 F.3d 380, 385 (6th Cir. 1997) (quoting
Memphis Community Sch. Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 307 (1986)).
The second principle serves as a limitation on the first: “Proximate causation
is an essential element of a § 1983 claim for damages. That is, a violation of a
federally secured right is remediable in damages only upon proof that the violation
proximately caused injury.” Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary Sch.
Athletic Ass'n, 442 F.3d 410, 443 (6th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted)
(quoting Horn v. Madison County Fiscal Court, 22 F.3d 653, 659 (6th Cir. 1994)),
rev'd on other grounds, 551 U.S. 291 (2007). Moreover, when it comes to
“reputational damage, foreseeability is an element of the proximate cause analysis,
but it is distinct from the requirement that a plaintiff show the injury was directly
caused by the defendant.” Brentwood Academy, 442 F.3d at 443-44 (citing Perry v.
9

Am. Tobacco Co., 324 F.3d 845, 850–51 (6th Cir. 2003)). Thus, “[i]t is a
fundamental tort law principle that while an injury to a plaintiff might be foreseeable,
the damages incurred could still be ‘too remote to permit recovery.’” Id. at 444
(quoting Laborers Local 17 Health & Benefit Fund v. Philip Morris, Inc., 191 F.3d
229, 236 (2d Cir. 1999)). See also Estate of Sowards v. City of Trenton, 125 F. App’x
31, 41 (6th Cir. 2005) (“[P]roximate causation is an essential element of a § 1983
claim for damages.”) (internal quotation marks omitted) (collecting cases).
The effect of these principles on the instant case is that while Zavatson is not
necessarily barred as a matter of law from recovering damages for harms suffered
after his January 24, 2013 arraignment (as Seidl argues he is), Zavatson nevertheless
may only recover damages for injuries that were both (1) a “direct result of his
unlawful arrest,” Wesley, 864 F.3d at 446, and (2) not “too remote to permit
recovery,” Brentwood Academy, 442 F.3d at 444.
The Court finds that Zavatson’s claim of lost wages does not satisfy this
standard. First, the causal relationship between Zavatson’s arrest and his lost
wages—and therefore the extent to which the latter was a “direct result” of the
former—is undermined by the lack of evidence that the termination of Zavatson’s
employment with FPS was directly caused by his arrest. Indeed, the Sixth Circuit
explicitly found in its October 31, 2017 opinion in this matter that Zavatson was
suspended from his job because he failed to report his felony arraignment to FPS as
10

required by Michigan law.1 The Sixth Circuit also pointed out that while his union
grievance was pending, Zavatson refused an offer of reinstatement by FPS that was
conditioned on his agreement not to sue FPS. See Zavatson, 714 F. App’x at 517-18.
The parties do not dispute these facts.
Zavatson testified both as to his failure to report his arraignment and as to his
later rejection of the reinstatement offer in a February 12, 2015 deposition. (Def.’s
Reply Ex. A, Deposition of Daniel Zavatson at 75:23-77:12, 83:10-20.) These facts
materially distinguish this case from Wesley. In Wesley, the plaintiff had been
discharged before his arrest, and the court found based on credible evidence that an
arrest for sexual abuse on his record then made it “extremely unlikely that any school
would have interviewed him for a job” in his subsequent search for new
employment. Wesley, 864 F.3d at 446 (6th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). Here, by
contrast, Zavatson’s initial suspension for failing to report his felony arraignment to
FPS and his rejection of the reinstatement offer represent superseding causes of his
ultimate termination from FPS, which is what necessitated his subsequent

1

Mich. Comp. Laws § 380.1230d provides in relevant part that “[i]f a person who
is employed in any capacity by a school district, intermediate school district, public
school academy, or nonpublic school . . . is charged with a crime listed in section
1535a(1) or 1539b(1)3 . . . , the person shall report to the department and to the
school district, intermediate school district, public school academy, or nonpublic
school that he or she has been charged with the crime.” Mich. Comp. Laws §
380.1230d(1). The list of crimes covered by this statute includes “[a]ny felony.”
Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 380.1535a(1)(a), 380.1539b(1)(a).
11

employment search in the first place. His discharge from FPS was not a direct result
of his arrest, and his subsequent lost wages therefore could not have been either.
Moreover, to whatever extent Zavatson’s lost wages were caused indirectly
by his arrest—i.e., as the initial occurrence that set the subsequent events in
motion—the superseding causes of Zavatson’s termination discussed above
attenuate any connection between the arrest and Zavatson’s lost wages in a way that
makes the lost wages “too remote to permit recovery” via a false arrest claim against
Seidl. Brentwood Academy, 442 F.3d at 444. This is not only because those
superseding causes account for Zavatson’s need to search for new employment to
begin with, but also because they create alternative inferences as to the reason that
search was unsuccessful. In other words, a separate reason that Zavatson’s lost
wages are “too remote [from his arrest] to permit recovery,” id., is that his difficulty
obtaining new employment was because of his termination from FPS, which was not
directly caused by his arrest.
Zavatson must therefore make at least some showing that he lost employment
opportunities because of the arrest and not just the termination, and he has failed to
do this. He argues that at least one potential employer did not hire him as a result of
his arrest, and cites a series of emails between two individuals apparently responsible
for hiring custodians for Litchfield Elementary School District (“LESD”), a school
district located in Arizona, where Zavatson now lives. (Pl.’s Resp. Ex. B, Emails.)
12

In that series of emails, an LESD human resources professional wrote to an LESD
maintenance director after Zavatson had been interviewed, noting that another
employee mentioned to her that “the candidate may have shared with you he was
accused of stealing before he left his employer. . . . I’m concerned as a night
custodian, he would have this in his background.” (Id.) The maintenance director
responded that “the applicant mentioned it in his interview and that he had been
exonerated.” (Id.) The human resources professional replied: “was it a school
investigation or was he actually arrested by the police? Is there anymore [sic] detail
that he shared with you?” (Id.) There is no response to this question.
Although this evidence suggests LESD’s awareness of (and concern
regarding) Zavatson’s arrest, it does not impel the conclusion that LESD did not
ultimately hire Zavatson because of an arrest. Indeed, any such conclusion is
undermined by Zavatson’s deposition testimony that the reason LESD gave him for
its decision not to hire him was “lack of reference.” (Zavatson Dep. 34:21-25.) He
further testified that with respect to one of the three FPS references he provided to
LESD—his direct supervisor and the only one of his references employed at the
particular school where he had worked—he was told it had taken “like 25 phone
calls to finally get ahold of somebody,” and that even then, he did not know whether
the reference had ever responded to LESD, and he had only ever seen a blank form
by way of a response from her. (Zavatson Dep. 33:7-34:20.) Zavatson’s testimony
13

included the following significant admission:
Q. Were you provided with any other reason as to why you were not
awarded the position at Litchfield Elementary School?
A. Just lack of reference from my employer.
Q. Anything else?
A. That's it.
(Zavatson Dep. 35:17-22.)
Zavatson’s proffered evidence does not demonstrate that he was not hired by
LESD because of his arrest, and he has not otherwise shown that he incurred lost
wages as a direct result of his arrest. The lost-wages evidence will therefore be
excluded, because the Court finds, based on Zavatson’s testimony, that these
damages were not a direct result of Zavatson’s arrest, and/or too remote from that
arrest to permit recovery.2 With respect to this evidence of lost wages, Seidl’s

2

The parties’ arguments in their briefing on Seidl’s Motion in Limine are grounded
almost exclusively in federal law, and neither party has cited authority suggesting
that the result should be any different as to Zavatson’s parallel state-law false arrest
claim. Indeed, Michigan law, like federal law, contemplates a requisite causal
relationship between an unlawful arrest and a plaintiff’s injuries in awarding
damages for such claims. Compare Stowers v. Ardmore Acres Hosp., 19 Mich. App.
115, 126 (1969) (upholding a jury’s award of damages to a false imprisonment
claimant where “[s]ufficient proof of various unauthorized actions resulting in
grievous damages to the plaintiff by the defendant exists to support the substantial
award against him”), aff'd sub nom. Stowers v. Wolodzko, 386 Mich. 119 (1971) with
Moore v. City of Detroit, 252 Mich. App. 384, 388 (2002) (holding that a plaintiff
could not maintain a false-imprisonment claim after finding that “[t]he confinements
allegedly caused by [the defendant’s] conduct were momentary and fleeting,” while
“Plaintiff's escape was stalled at length only when, through his own recklessness, he
14

Motion is granted.
2.

Evidence of post-arraignment events

Seidl also argues that Zavatson “should be precluded from offering evidence
of events which occurred after his arraignment on January 24, 2013[,] as such
evidence is irrelevant to Plaintiff's false arrest claims.” (Def.’s Mot. at 2, Pg ID
5830.) This evidence includes “the preliminary examination hearing, the dismissal
of charges against Plaintiff, Detective Seidl's taking of fingerprints, Plaintiff's
polygraph examination and results, and Plaintiff's March 5, 2013 suspension,
grievance proceedings, and eventual termination.” (Id. at 13, Pg ID 5848.) Seidl
contends that since the central element of both of Zavatson’s false arrest claims is
whether Seidl had probable cause to effect Zavatson’s arrest, and because “[t]he
probable cause determination depends on the reasonable conclusions ‘drawn from
the facts known to the arresting officer at the time of the arrest,’” it follows that any
evidence of events that took place after Zavatson’s arrest is per se irrelevant. (Def.’s
Reply at 5, Pg ID 5985 (quoting Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 152 (2004)).)
The Court disagrees.
Seidl’s argument overlooks that the Sixth Circuit opinion discussed evidence
relating to events subsequent to Zavatson’s arraignment in determining that Seidl

injured himself”). The Court thus finds that the foregoing analysis applies to
Zavatson’s state-law false arrest claim as well as his federal claim.
15

was not entitled to summary judgment on the false arrest claims. Specifically, the
Sixth Circuit examined “basic investigatory steps” that Seidl took after the arrest
warrant was issued and Zavatson was arraigned, as well as post-arraignment
testimony by both Seidl and Odgers, and held that a reasonable jury could conclude
based on that evidence that Seidl made false statements in his warrant application,
intentionally omitted material facts from that application, or acted in bad faith, such
that Seidl was not entitled to summary judgment on qualified immunity or
governmental immunity grounds. Zavatson, 714 F. App’x at 521-23.
Thus, the decision to be made by the trier of the fact in this case will not be
limited to the issue of whether Seidl had probable cause (though that is an essential
element of Zavatson’s claims). Rather, the factfinder will also have to consider
whether Seidl may invoke qualified immunity as to Zavatson’s federal claim and
governmental immunity as to his state-law claim, and in making these
determinations, the factfinder should not be precluded from considering certain
limited post-arraignment events. For example, Zavatson can question Seidl:
1. About whether he secured the safes from which cash was stolen;
2. About whether he took fingerprints off the safes before he went to
the prosecutor to see if they would match Zavatson’s;
3. About whether he investigated not just custodians, but other
individuals who had a master key that provided access to the offices in
which the safes were located;
4. About whether he reviewed the video with the prosecutor;

16

5. About whether he told the prosecutor that he could not identify the
person in the video; or
6. About Seidl’s testimony at the preliminary examination.
On the other hand, Zavatson cannot question Seidl:
1. About any polygraph examination; or
2. About fingerprint analysis results.
Seidl has requested a broad prohibition on admission of all evidence relating
to events after Zavatson’s arraignment under Federal Rule of Evidence 401. The
Court’s present ruling applies to the admissibility of this evidence to prove liability,
and does not necessarily extend to the issue of damages. Further, the Court is not
ruling as to other Federal Rules of Evidence. Insofar as Seidl’s Motion in Limine
seeks this broad prohibition, the Motion is denied.
B.

Zavatson’s Motion in Limine
Zavatson seeks to have the following evidence excluded at trial:
a. Any and all evidence relating to Plaintiff’s declaration of bankruptcy
in or about the year 2000.
b. Any and all evidence relating to Plaintiff’s worker’s compensation
claim for a back injury in or about 2003 or 2004, including the injury
and the receipt of benefits.
c. Any and all evidence relating to [Zavatson’s wife] Jennifer
Zavatson’s lawsuit related to an injury in or about the year 2002.

(Pl.’s Mot. at 2, Pg ID 5884.)
Each of these categories of evidence, Zavatson argues, would be both
irrelevant under Federal Rules of Evidence 401 and 402, and substantially more
17

prejudicial than probative under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. Specifically,
Zavatson argues that evidence regarding his bankruptcy would be patently irrelevant
to his false arrest claims because “[t]here is simply no connection between [those
claims and] a bankruptcy that occurred more than 10 years prior to the subject
incident,” and also because Zavatson “was not experiencing financial difficulty at
the time of his arrest.” (Pl.’s Mot. at 4, Pg ID 5894.) Zavatson also notes in particular
that if Seidl’s intention is to introduce evidence of Zavatson’s financial hardship to
suggest that he had a motive for theft, this is prejudicial in itself. Similarly, Zavatson
argues that his earlier back injury that prompted him to file worker’s compensation
claims, as well as his wife’s personal injury lawsuit, are both significantly remote in
time from the incidents relevant to this action, would not make any material fact
more or less probable, and could result in jury confusion.
In his Response, Seidl maintains that he has no intention of introducing any
of the contested evidence for the purpose of suggesting a motivation to commit theft.
Instead, Seidl argues that if Zavatson is permitted to introduce evidence of lost
earnings and lost earning capacity, the evidence that Zavatson seeks to exclude may
be relevant. In particular,
[t]he fact that Plaintiff suffered a back injury in 2003 or 2004, and filed
for bankruptcy in 2000, may be relevant to the jury’s determination of
whether, and to what extent, Plaintiff incurred lost earnings and a loss
in earning capacity. Further, to the extent that Plaintiff will attempt to
argue that his intimate relationship with his wife has been adversely
18

impacted as a result of his arrest, the nature and extent of Jennifer
Zavatson’s injury, and the resulting impact, if any, on their intimate
relationship, would be a relevant consideration for the jury.
(Def.’s Resp. at 6, Pg ID 5978.)
In his Reply, Zavatson accurately points out that Seidl has offered no specific
explanation as to how evidence of Zavatson’s bankruptcy, his back injury and
resulting worker’s compensation claim, or his wife’s personal injury lawsuit could
be relevant to his damages in this action. Zavatson also argues that evidence
suggesting financial hardship would “subject [him] to unfair prejudice with no
probative value as it would only be offered by Defendant as an attempt to convince
the jury that Plaintiff somehow had financial problems and that is what motivated
him to file the instant lawsuit”—an assumption which “could not be further from the
truth.” (Pl.’s Reply at 3, Pg ID 6068.)
As discussed supra, this Court finds that Zavatson has failed to show that his
lost wages or diminished earning capacity were direct results of his arrest, or that
they were not too remote from the arrest to permit recovery. This finding largely
moots Seidl’s argument for introduction of the evidence challenged by Zavatson in
his Motion in Limine, since that argument is based primarily on the assumption that
Zavatson will introduce lost-wages evidence. To the extent that it is not, the Court
finds that Zavatson’s bankruptcy, Zavatson’s back injury and resulting worker’s
compensation claim, and Jennifer Zavatson’s personal injury lawsuit are
19

significantly remote in time from the events relevant to this lawsuit. Indeed, it is not
clear how the challenged evidence is at all relevant to Zavatson’s claims or Seidl’s
defenses, and Seidl’s argument for its relevance is perfunctory. Accordingly,
Zavatson’s Motion in Limine is granted.
IV.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, the Court hereby ORDERS that:
 Defendant Seidl’s Motion in Limine is GRANTED to the extent that it
seeks to exclude evidence of post-arraignment damage claims not directly
caused by acts or omissions of Defendant Seidl, including (but not limited
to) the lost-wages claims that Zavatson has submitted in his Response to
Seidl’s Motion in Limine;
 Defendant Seidl’s Motion in Limine is DENIED in all other respects; and
 Defendant Zavatson’s Motion in Limine is GRANTED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 8, 2018

s/Paul D. Borman
Paul D. Borman
United States District Judge

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
The undersigned certifies that a copy of the foregoing order was served upon
each attorney or party of record herein by electronic means or first class U.S. mail
on August 8, 2018.
s/D. Tofil
Deborah Tofil, Case Manager
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