Black v. Wrigley

In defamation action alleging that defendants made false statements to plaintiff's employer about plaintiff providing false statements to Colorado state court action involving plaintiff's husband, Dist. Ct did not err in refusing plaintiff's requests to allow her either to present closing argument herself or to hire new counsel, after her trial counsel, according to plaintiff, suffered "severe collapse of cognitive function" at time closing arguments were set to take place at trial. Some of plaintiff's arguments in this regard were akin to claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, where plaintiff asserted that her trial counsel was not prepared. However, plaintiff was not entitled to new trial, since: (1) civil litigants have no constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel; (2) plaintiff's only remedy is malpractice action against trial counsel, as opposed to remand for new trial; and (3) Dist. Ct. had good reason to suspect that plaintiff would not follow rules if allowed to give her own pro se closing argument. Moreover, trial counsel's request to continue closing arguments over weekend was granted, and trial counsel eventually gave capable closing argument on behalf of plaintiff. Also, Dist. Ct. did not commit plain error in omitting jury instruction on her defamation claim against one defendant, where plaintiff failed to show that outcome of trial would have been different had said instruction been given to jury, where jury, which had been given appropriate instructions regarding defamation claim against other defendant, found that other defendant did not commit defamation in making exact same statements that formed basis of defamation claim against defendant at issue in omitted instruction.