Jinro America, Inc. v. Secure Investments, Inc.

JR International Corp. and its subsidiary Jinro America, Inc. (Jinro) (plaintiffs) sued Secured Investments, Inc. and related parties (defendants) over the collapse of an international frozen-chicken trade deal, which the defendants claimed was a sham. Over Jinro's objection, the defendants called David Herbert Pelham, a private investigator providing commercial security in Korea who had no direct contact with or investigation of Jinro, to testify as an expert on Korean business practices and Koreans' supposed tendency toward fraud; Pelham based his sweeping generalizations on newspaper articles and unspecified input from his office staff. After the jury found for the defendants on the deal's characterization, the district court sua sponte entered judgment against Jinro, which appealed.