District Court Requires Plaintiff to Disclose Evidence About Noneconomic Loss

When plaintiffs request damages for noneconomic loss such as pain and suffering, courts are split on whether a defendant can require a plaintiff to disclose during discovery how much the plaintiff intends to ask the jury to award in noneconomic damages. A recent decision from a federal district court in Minnesota, however, required the plaintiff to do just that.

In Lewis v. City of Burnsville, 2020 WL 3496990 (D. Minn. June 29, 2020), the defendants asked the plaintiff during discovery to itemize the damages that she was seeking and “produce documentary support for her damages claim.” The plaintiff declined to provide this information, arguing that it was impossible to calculate her noneconomic loss. The magistrate judge, however, ruled that the plaintiff had to disclose how much she was seeking in noneconomic damages “along with the basis for that figure,” if the plaintiff intended to ask the jury for a specific dollar amount (or range) of noneconomic damages at trial.