Jinro America Inc. v. Secure Investments, Inc.

Opinion by Judge FISHER; Concurrence by Judge WALLACE

OVERVIEW

This case arises out of a business deal ostensibly for the international trade of frozen chicken. Appellants are JR International Corp. (“JRI”), a South Korean corporation, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Jinro America, Inc. (“JAI”), which we shall collectively refer to as “Jinro” or “the Jinro Group.” 1 Appellees are defendants Brian Bishop, COBBI International Food Products (“COBBI”), Landmark Forwarding Company (“Landmark”), Burnett Watkins and Secure Investments, Inc. (“Secure”), whom we shall collectively refer to as the “defendants.”

When the parties’ deal unraveled, Jinro sued the defendants to recover millions of dollars for breach of contract, fraud and racketeering, but were met with the defendants’ claim that the transaction was a sham. The defendants argued that the chicken deal was designed to cover up a high-risk investment program that circumvented Korea’s currency regulations. After the district court bifurcated the trial to address the sham contract allegation in phase one, a jury agreed with defendants’ *996 characterization of the transaction, whereupon the district court sua sponte entered…

concurring in the result:

I concur in the majority’s holding that the district court abused its discretion in admitting certain parts of the expert testimony of David Pelham and would reverse on that basis. However, I write separately because I disagree with the majority’s visitation to issues unnecessary for our disposition of this appeal, and I do not join in this dicta. Even if it were not dicta, the analysis used by the majority is too troubling for me to join. In essence, this is a simple case: Pelham’s testimony regarding Korean businessmen and Korean business practices was inadmissible because it was not relevant. The district court abused its discretion, and such testimony, by its very nature, is prejudicial. That ends the matter. Sidestepping the dispos-itive issue of relevancy, however, the majority unnecessarily invades a field of its choice in order to discuss the sensitive and difficult issue of race and ethnicity. This is most troubling because the majority must make its own factual findings of foreign business practices without the aid of a word of evidence in the record. While I am confident my colleagues are convinced that their pronouncements are right and…