COA Decisions Today

In a series of decisions today, the Court of Appeals:

* expounded on the contract doctrines of impossibility and frustration of purpose (see here);

* suggested that if a plaintiff doesn't discount its damages to present value for the jury, the burden my be on the defendant to present present-value evidence or risk being stuck with the full (non-discounted) amount sought by the plaintiff (see here);

* suggested that a discovery admission per Rule 36 may be changed from admit to deny (or vice versa) via a Rule 26(e) "supplement" (see here);

* held that a defendant's objection to the trial court's failure to charge the jury with defendant's proposed instructions isn't sufficient to preserve an appellate challenge to the trial court's decision to charge the jury with plaintiff's proposed instructions; the defendant must object to the instructions delivered to preserve the appellate challenge (see here); and

* affirmed a Rule 11 sanction for a plaintiff's attorney's filing of a charging lien (see here).