Plaintiff Waived Issues At Trial that Were Raised in an Undecided Pre-Trial Motion in Limine

In its decision marked Non-Precedential in the case of Wingate v. McGrath, No. 2879 EDA 2023 (Pa. Super. April 10, 2025 Panella, P.J.E., Stabile, J., and Nichols, J.) (Op. by Panella, P.J.E.), the Superior Court reviewed various post-trial issues and confirmed that a pre-trial Motion In Limine filed by the Plaintiff that was not decided prior to trial and which was not revisited until after trial was waived.

According to the Opinion, the Plaintiff filed a Motion In Limine to exclude the Defendant’s causation expert. However, the trial court did not resolve that motion prior to trial.

The record confirmed that, during trial, the Plaintiff did not re-raise the issues from the pre-trial motion in limine until after testimony was heard and the jury had retired to deliberate.

When the issue was raised again at that point, the trial court held that the issues regarding the Defendant’s expert had been waived. However, after a defense verdict was handed down by the jury, the trial court granted the Plaintiff a new trial.

On appeal, the Superior Court rejected the Plaintiff’s argument that the Defendant had failed to properly preserve his argument that the Plaintiff had waived the issues regarding the defense expert.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that issues raised in an undecided pre-trial motion in limine must be re-raised at trial in order to be preserved. Here, the Plaintiff did not raise the issues again until after the relevant testimony was already in evidence. As such, the Superior Court held that the admissibility of the Defendant’s expert issue had been waived by the Plaintiff.

Accordingly, the Superior Court ruled that the trial court had erred by granting the Plaintiff a new trial on this issue after a defense verdict had been entered.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this Non-Precedential decision may click this LINK.


I send thanks to Attorney James M. Beck of the Philadelphia office of the Reed Smith law firm for bringing this case to my attention.