 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Reed v. Furr's Supermarkets8/22/2000
ing whether Plaintiff abused the discovery process. Second, Plaintiff argues that the district court improperly determined her credibility and that only a jury should have been assigned that role.
1. Plaintiff's Misrepresentations and Their Relationship to Facts at Trial
In making these arguments, Plaintiff attempts to distinguish the ultimate importance of the type of information she misrepresented. Plaintiff contends that her veracity concerning her medical history was a contested issue of fact to be disposed of at trial. She relies on Bustillos, in which we stated that "ordinarily the trial is the proper forum to determine whether a party has lied on the merits." Bustillos, 116 N.M. at 676, 866 P.2d at 404.
Plaintiff's argument seems to rest on an apparent distinction in Bustillos between the type of information a party misrepresents and the appropriate sanction for such misrepresentation. In Bustillos, while applying this Court's holding in Sandoval, we distinguished between information that would be an issue at trial and information that would simply lead to additional avenues of discovery. See Bustillos, 116 N.M. at 677, 866 P.2d at 405. We explained that in a workers' compensation case, the worker's physical capacity would be an issue at trial, while his employment history would not. See id. On this basis, we held that the sanction of dismissal for false answers to interrogatories about physical capacity would not be appropriate, even though the same sanction for false answers to interrogatories about the worker's employment history could be justified.
In Bustillos, we reasoned that the worker's answers to questions concerning his physical capacity did not inhibit the employer's ability to continue its discovery and its preparation for trial because the answers merely informed the employer of the worker's contentions on a matter "central to the merits of his case." Id. We stated that "veracity on [the worker's physical capacity] ordinarily should be decided at trial." Id. We also reasoned that the worker's answers to questions concerning his employment history could be the basis for dismissal of his case because false answers about this subject could obstruct the employer's ability to prepare for trial by foreclosing the discovery of witnesses, as well as other possible avenues of discovery. See id. at 677-78, 866 P.2d at 405-06. Importantly, in Bustillos " he only evidence [showing] that the interrogatory answer was deceitful was observation of orker's landscaping work nine days after he served the interrogatory answer." Id. at 677, 866 P.2d at 405. Thus, in Bustillos, the party moving for dismissal did not demonstrate that the allegedly false answers to the interrogatories were made willfully or in bad faith because the possibility remained that the worker's physical capacity had improved and he had not started working until after he answered the interrogatories. See id.
After Bustillos, our Supreme Court decided Medina. In Medina the Supreme Court construed the holding of this Court's opinion in Sandoval, which upheld the district court's dismissal of a tort suit for injuries arising out of a car accident in which the plaintiff gave false answers to interrogatories about previous car accidents and injuries. See Sandoval, 109 N.M. at 6-7, 780 P.2d at 1153-54. In Sandoval, this Court stated:
In our view, two critical aspects of the falsehood in this case relate to the subject matter of the interrogatory answers. The answers (1) were not direct assertions of material elements of a claim or defense and (2) did deceive defendants about the existence of discoverable information that could be critical to prep
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 New Mexico Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|