RAMADA DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Martin W. RAUCH et al., Defendants-Third Party Plaintiffs-Appellants, J. Stewart Stein, Third Party Defendant., 644 F.2d 1097

Summary

Defendant debtors signed a contract with plaintiff developer to build a motel. Plaintiff brought a claim court final payment. Based the jury's answers to interrogatories, the district court entered judgment for plaintiff. On review, defendant raised issues regarding the instructions to the jury and issue regarding excluded evidence. The court held that failure of trial court to instruct on plaintiff's alleged negligence was not error because the duty owed under the contract was greater than the duty owed under a tort theory. The court noted that defendant failed to object to an instruction on the prevention of performance by plaintiff and when reviewed under the plain error standard, the trial court did not commit error. The trial court was correct in refusing to admit report of plaintiff's architect because it was prepared in an attempt to settle the case and was inadmissible under Fed. R. Evid. 408. The court noted that there was no evidence submitted as to whether Fla. Stat. Ann. § ...