Colorado Catastrophe and Restoration, et al. v. Ted and Dorothy Newman: 7/14/08: This Breach of Contract case arising from reconstruction of a home residence after a fire  is being tried to the court.  Several “duplicate” exhibits are offered, including the original Work Authorization; Scope of Work Estimate; City Building Inspection Report; and email communications between the parties.  Each time a lawyer refers to an exhibit designation for a document that has previously been admitted under a different exhibit designation, it raises questions about why there is more than one version of the document being used.  In most cases, there is no reason for this, other than the lawyers have not compared exhibit lists and worked to avoid duplication.  Upon direct questioning by the court as to any differences between the exhibits, the lawyers are uncertain as to why more than one version has been offered.

 Moral?  Use of duplicate exhibits may cause confusion or lead to questions even where none previously existed.  Lawyers should carefully review any exhibit that appears to be a duplicate, and either remove a true copy, or quickly and specifically draw the court’s attention to any differences between the apparent duplicates.  Sometimes, technology will be the most efficient way to identify these differences (scanning the documents and making a page-by-page comparison is a start) – although good, old-fashioned eyeballing may be required.  Otherwise, the court is left to wonder why – this consequence is even more troublesome with jurors, as a juror with an unanswered question may be distracted by this “non-issue” during questioning that the lawyer deems important.