Case Law Bonus Post: Karan v Baboons, Inc

Notes: The vast majority of, if not all of, college civil cases (and certainly this year’s) are “bifurcated” (separated) into liability and damages phases, and we only try the liability phase. In the liability phase, the goal is to establish whether or not the defendant owes the plaintiff money. “Damages” is another term for the harms the plaintiff suffered (examples of which include pain, suffering, and death). It’s also used to refer to the money paid in compensation for such harm. If there is a damages phase, then its been determined that the defendant does owe the plaintiff money and the question being decided is how much. This case law essentially beefs up the relevance and waste-of-time objections with respect to evidence that goes mostly towards the magnitude of damages. The plaintiff is allowed to introduce evidence to establish the existence of damages, but not to wax endlessly on about how great those damages were. In this case, for instance, while establishing that Lee Allen died would be relevant to establish damages, spending a great length of time establishing how painful his/her death likely was probably wouldn’t be. This case law can be brought out to support a relevance objection to such testimony.