Practices
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Horvitz & Levy successfully defeated plaintiff’s appeal in a personal injury action, representing the defendant’s insurer as an intervenor after the defendant died while the appeal was pending.
Jose Martinez Iriqui sued Michael Latt for injuries allegedly resulting from a vehicle accident. Throughout pretrial proceedings, both parties designated experts, but Martinez Iriqui struggled to provide his experts for deposition, repeatedly rescheduling or canceling due to other commitments. Although trial dates were postponed multiple times, discovery deadlines were not extended. As trial approached, Latt moved to exclude Martinez Iriqui’s witnesses because they had never been deposed. Before the trial court ruled on that motion, Martinez Iriqui withdrew his expert witnesses. He prevailed at trial but his recovery was less than Latt’s pretrial settlement offer, so Martinez Iriqui ended up having to pay Latt’s costs for the trial, resulting in a net recovery in favor of Latt.
Martinez Iriqui appealed, seeking a new trial based on the trial court’s discovery and scheduling rulings, which he claimed prevented him from being able to call his expert witnesses at trial. Latt’s insurer, State Farm, retained Horvitz & Levy to respond to Iriqui’s appeal. While the appeal was pending, Latt was killed. Horvitz & Levy then filed a motion to intervene, asking the Court of Appeal to permit State Farm to appear in the appeal and defend the judgment in favor of its insured. The Court of Appeal granted the motion. Horvitz & Levy then briefed and argued the appeal on behalf of State Farm.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, rejecting Martinez Iriqui’s arguments that the trial court’s discovery and scheduling rulings amounted to a “structural error” that violated his due process rights. The court reasoned that Iriqui did not formally request an extension of the discovery deadline or comply with requirements under Code of Civil Procedure section 2024.050 for seeking to re-open discovery. When the trial court set a final deadline for Martinez Iriqui to make his experts available for deposition, he failed to object or seek further accommodations. Additionally, because Martinez Iriqui did not produce his witnesses for trial and did not seek a trial court ruling on the issue, he could not later claim unfair prejudice due to their absence.