Opinion ID: 1219560
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Impeachment of the defense expert witness.

Text: The district court excluded testimony regarding the relationship between Enterprise, Enterprise's counsel, and one of Enterprise's expert witnesses. The expert had testified many times for both Enterprise and its lawyer, who was in-house counsel for Enterprise. Exposure of these relationships to the jury may have shown bias on the part of the expert. Robinson asserts that this type of impeachment is a standard trial tactic. The United States Supreme Court has emphasized that the exposure of a witness's motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 678-79, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 1435, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986). Although Van Arsdall is a criminal case which has stronger constitutional safeguards regarding cross-examination, the same reasoning regarding bias applies in a civil trial. Frank B. Hall & Co. v. Buck, 678 S.W.2d 612 (Tex.App.1984). In Hall, the court admitted evidence of the witness's personal business dealings with the defendant corporation. The court held that, [t]he jury should be given the opportunity to judge for themselves the witness's credibility in light of the relationship between the parties, the witness's motive for testifying, or any matter which would tend to influence the testimony given by a witness. Id. at 628. Expert witness testimony is, in some respects, akin to a business arrangement between the witness, the hiring attorney and the client. The trier of fact has the right to take business associations into account when determining the credibility of witnesses and the weight to give their testimony. Wittenberg v. Wittenberg, 56 Nev. 442, 452-53, 55 P.2d 619, 623 (1936) (in weighing the evidence, the factfinder considered the relationships and business associations between the litigants and their testifying witnesses). Robinson should have had the right to expose the witness's previous dealings with Enterprise or its counsel. Robinson also asserts that the trial court erred by excluding certain parts of the deposition testimony of his witness, Richard Kassow. Kassow was a repairman who had worked on this machine several times. The trial court excluded (1) Kassow's opinion as to how the safety screen was damaged; (2) Kassow's comparison of the design of this machine with that of another baler; and (3) a diagram that Kassow drew of this machine. First, Kassow had heard from a third party how the machine was damaged. The trial court concluded the third-party's statement was inadmissible hearsay. However, that information is not hearsay if it is offered, not for the truth of the matter asserted, but to show its effect on the hearer. See 6 J. Chadbourn, Wigmore on Evidence, 314 (1976). Here, the statement was offered for its effect on Kassow and showed how Kassow formed his opinion regarding the damage to the baler, and how he chose to fix it. For that purpose, his opinion on this issue should have been admitted. Second, the court excluded Kassow's comparison of this machine to another baler because Robinson could not show the date the other baler was built. Without such a showing, the court was correct to exclude that evidence. Finally, the court excluded Kassow's drawing because it found the drawing was cumulative and misleading. This decision was within the discretion of the trial court.