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Monfore v. Phillips | 778 F.3d 849 (2015)
The liberal pleading standards of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allow parties to raise alternative, and sometimes contradictory, claims or defenses in their complaints or answers. And during discovery, parties will sometimes endeavor to uncover every possible piece of evidence and to depose every potential witness. But it’s not administratively feasible or strategically advisable for such a broad scope to persist in the courtroom. In Monfore versus Phillips, we explore how final pretrial orders help narrow the focus of a case as it approaches trial.
When Sherman Shatwell went to the hospital with neck pain, tests revealed throat cancer that was treatable if addressed promptly. Unfortunately, Shatwell was sent home with antibiotics and never informed of his diagnosis. He learned of the cancer a year later, at which point it was terminal.
After Shatwell’s death, his wife filed a negligence action in federal court against the hospital and various doctors, including Kenneth Phillips. The hospital and doctors collectively denied any negligence during twenty months of pretrial motions and discovery. When preparing to enter a final pretrial order stating a trial plan, the district court judge asked the parties to specify the claims and defenses they intended to raise at trial, along with their witnesses and exhibits. The hospital and doctors persisted with their no-negligence argument. But after issuance of the final pretrial order, and just two weeks before trial, some of the doctors settled.
Phillips, who didn’t settle, filed a motion to amend the final pretrial order because he wanted to now argue that there was negligence, but only by the settling doctors.
The district court denied Phillips’s motion to amend, and the jury ultimately found him liable for approximately one million dollars in damages. Phillips appealed to the Tenth Circuit.
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