Ballard Realty Co. v. Ohazurike

97 So. 3d 52, 2012 WL 3854912, 2012 Miss. LEXIS 435
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 6, 2012
DocketNo. 2010-CA-01616-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 97 So. 3d 52 (Ballard Realty Co. v. Ohazurike) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ballard Realty Co. v. Ohazurike, 97 So. 3d 52, 2012 WL 3854912, 2012 Miss. LEXIS 435 (Mich. 2012).

Opinions

RANDOLPH, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. Parham Pointe North, LLC (“Par-ham”) and K. Wayne Rice & Associates (“Rice”) together appeal (“the Parham appeal”), and Ballard Realty Company (“Ballard”) separately appeals, (collectively “Defendants”) a decision from the Hinds County Circuit Court awarding damages of $3,603,712 to apartment-complex tenants for loss of intellectual property and personal injuries arising from claims that the Defendants were negligent in maintaining and/or repairing a leaking pipe in their apartment. We find that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting unreliable expert testimony, allowing a lay witness to give opinion testimony, and not excluding evidence of the cost of restoration where the fair market value of the property before it was damaged was not established. We further find that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to grant a new trial on damages, as an award of lost profits without proof of past profits was not only contrary to the established law of this state, it was also contrary to the weight of evidence. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment and remand to the Hinds County Circuit Court for a new trial on damages.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. Sometime before May 2007, Ohazu-rike notified the manager of the apartment [55]*55complex that there was a leaky pipe behind the toilet in the apartment where Ohazurike lived with his wife, Esther Oha-zurike (“Esther”), and their son, Darling-ton Ohazurike (“Darlington”) (collectively “the Ohazurikes”). Thereafter, on a Friday in May 2007, leaking water from the Ohazurikes’ bathroom seeped into a carpeted portion of the apartment. Water damaged nineteen “production-ready” board, card, and video games designed by Ohazurike, which were spread out on the carpeted portion of the apartment.1 Oha-zurike testified that the complex did not send anyone to vacuum the carpet after the event, but later testified that an employee went to the apartment to dry the carpet, but failed to remove all the water from the carpet. A Parham employee and Esther both testified that one of the Defendants’ employees went to the apartment to vacuum the water, though Esther, like Ohazurike, testified that the employee was unable to remove all the water from the carpet.

¶ 3. Ohazurike testified that he had designed more than 150 board, card, and video games over a period exceeding two decades. Of these games, Ohazurike had marketed only two board games — Insight Bible Game (“Insight”) and Challenge Word Game (“Challenge”) — although fifty-three additional games were in a “production ready” state. A corporation that Oha-zurike organized, Upstart Games and Amusements (“Upstart”), sold 5,000 units each of Insight and Challenge over seven to eight years (1996-2003/2004). Aecord-ing to tax returns, Upstart never made a profit. The company reported net losses of $34,000 over a ten-year period. Ohazu-rike had created and copyrighted at least four of the nineteen “production-ready” games that were damaged in the event, more than twenty years prior to the event. Four other games were created approximately ten years before the event. Ohazu-rike offered that the reason he had not manufactured and sold any games was that he had been unsuccessful in obtaining financing, up to and including 2007. Ohazu-rike created an uber optimistic business plan, totally ignoring past losses and meager sales (actual facts and data), and then engaged Kevin Lightheart in 2006 to prepare a business valuation based on the unsupported projections of Ohazurike, to assist Ohazurike in obtaining financing to manufacture and sell games. Ohazurike’s business plan and Lightheart’s valuation were unsuccessful in obtaining financing from a single banker, lender, investor, or venture capitalist.

¶ 4. On December 11, 2007, the Ohazu-rikes first filed a complaint in the Hinds County Circuit Court, naming as defendants: Parham; Arlington Properties, Inc.; Ballard; Rice; and “agents and/or employees of the corporate defendants ....”2

¶ 5. In January 2008, Defendants removed the case to federal court. In July 2009, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi re[56]*56manded the case to state court, providing that “Plaintiff ha[d] requested and been granted leave to amend the Complaint on two occasions.... Under the current Complaint, Plaintiffs do not assert any claims arising under federal law, and the parties are not diverse.”

¶ 6. The original 2007 complaint included numerous causes of action, including allegations of racial discrimination, fraud and misrepresentation, assault, malicious prosecution, and defamation and slander. However, in excising claims to garner a remand from federal court, the Ohazurikes abandoned all claims except their claims of negligent maintenance and repair of the leak. The Ohazurikes’ second amended complaint in federal court, which prompted the remand, alleged that, due to the Defendants’ negligence, a pipe had burst in the Ohazurikes’ apartment in the Parham Pointe complex, damaging intellectual property in the form of blueprints and plans for nineteen games that Ohazurike had designed. The Ohazurikes further alleged that the Defendants’ failure to remove water from their apartment caused all three Ohazurikes to incur medical bills for respiratory problems and caused Dar-lington to contract contact dermatitis that resulted in permanent scarring. Thus, the basis of liability was the Defendants’ negligence, vel non, in maintaining and/or repairing the leaky pipe.

¶ 7. After the case was remanded, the parties filed numerous pretrial motions. The pretrial motions that are relevant to this appeal are as follows:

• On May 14, 2010, Ballard filed a motion to exclude all of the Ohazu-rikes’ experts, and on July 8, 2010, Ballard filed a supplemental motion to exclude the Ohazurikes’ experts, raising additional arguments addressing the timing and substance of the expert testimony of Dr. Glenda Glover. The motions were denied as to Glover and Kevin Lightheart. The court did not address the motion as to Jeffrey Chance and Robert Johnson, but allowed both to testify.
• On July 2, 2010, Ballard filed a motion in limine to suppress testimony and evidence concerning, inter alia: the fair market value of Ohazurike’s games before their destruction; the fair market value of Upstart Games & Amusements, Inc. and Kevin Lightheart’s valuation; the cost to restore the games to their pre-de-struction condition, including Robert Johnson’s expert testimony; lost earnings or profits; the results of mold testing on an air-conditioning filter from the Ohazurikes’ apartment; any alleged physical injuries caused by the alleged mold in the apartment; and “any evidence regarding the use of the ‘ri word, or any inference of racism or discrimination, by any of the defendants, or by any person associated with the defendants ... the only ... possible purpose for such evidence would be to impassion and prejudice the jury....”
• On July 8, 2010, Parham again filed a motion in limine to suppress, inter alia, Glover’s testimony and “any mention of a reference to any alleged claims that Marilyn Webster was forced by Defendants to file false charges of assault against Benny Ohazurike.”

¶ 8. A jury trial began on July 12, 2010. Among the Ohazurikes’ witnesses were Glover, Chance, Lightheart, and Johnson.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
97 So. 3d 52, 2012 WL 3854912, 2012 Miss. LEXIS 435, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ballard-realty-co-v-ohazurike-miss-2012.