No. 5-99-0830 IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ... - Appellate.net

introduce testimony from consumer advocates who would have explained that the
specification of non-OEM parts is a pro-consumer practice that makes repairs less costly and
prevents the car companies from charging the kinds of monopoly prices for repair parts they
used to charge before the non-OEM market developed. See, e.g., R. 10109-11. Nor was
State Farm allowed to explain to the jury that it is a mutual company, owned by its
policyholders, and therefore was motivated only by a desire to protect its policyholders —
and not by the need to generate profits for shareholders. C. 28988.
Whatever the merits of these rulings may have been before the trial began, it was a
clear abuse of discretion for the circuit court to continue to adhere to them once plaintiffs
stood up in opening argument and started throwing mud at State Farm. Plaintiffs accused
State Farm of foisting non-OEM parts on “vulnerable” “minorities,” such as “blacks,
Hispanics, and particularly Vietnamese,” and a “little old lady,” while bestowing OEM parts
on “well-shod” policyholders whose “golfing buddies” might be lawyers. 46/ R. 6007-10,
4507.18, 4441, 13002. Plaintiffs implied that State Farm was cheating policyholders by
providing cheaper parts than class members had paid for and asked the jury to force State
Farm to give up the ill-gotten “money” it had supposedly “made” from this misconduct. R.
13008. Then, in closing argument, plaintiffs urged the jury to speak up for justice, invoking
the specter of “Nazis” herding victims to the gas chamber, while good people failed to
46/
This was not the first time that plaintiffs’ lead trial counsel has made the unfortunate
decision to play the race card in a civil trial. The Mississippi Supreme Court recently
reversed a verdict that Mr. Barrett had obtained in a breach of contract action in part because
of his “obvious effort to inflame the emotions of the jury” by “blatantly play[ing] the ‘race
card’ before the jury.” General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Baymon, 732 So.2d 262, 271-72
(Miss. 1999).
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