Opinion ID: 2047279
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Grismore Decision

Text: In Grismore, we stated that objections claiming evidence would invade the province of the jury or usurp the function of the jury stem from a misconception of the necessity and purpose of opinion testimony. 232 Iowa at 343, 5 N.W.2d at 655. We explained: Any such objection is not valid or tenable if the opinion called for is about a matter which is a proper subject of expert testimony. No such ... opinion can invade the province of the jury or usurp its functions even though it passes upon a controlling fact or the ultimate fact which the jury must determine. This is necessarily so. Id. at 343, 5 N.W.2d at 655-56. It does not usurp the functions of the jury because the jury is not required to accept the opinion. Id. Accordingly, we observed: There is no sound basis in law, reason, or common sense for decisions that a witness may state his opinion as to what may, might, could, or probably did cause something, but may not give an opinion as to that did, will, or would, cause it. The true rule is, and should be, that the witness may use such expression as voices his true state of mind on the matter, whether it be possibility, probability, or actuality. To insist that a witness confine his testimony to an expression of possibility or probability, when his real judgment or conviction is actuality, or fact, is unfair to the witness and the jury, and unjust to the party offering the testimony. Id. at 348, 5 N.W.2d at 657. While we abandoned the ultimate issue rule and the verbal circumlocutions it entailed, we were careful to caution that there were still limits on the admissibility of opinion testimony: It should be received only as to such matters as are the proper subject of expert testimony. No witness should be permitted to give his opinion directly that a person is guilty or innocent, or is criminally responsible or irresponsible, or that a person was negligent or not negligent, or that he had capacity to execute a will or deed, or like instrument, or ... whether [probable cause existed]. But the reason is that such matters are not subjects of opinion testimony. They are mixed questions of law and fact. When a standard, or a measure, or a capacity has been fixed by law, no witness whether expert or non-expert, nor however qualified, is permitted to express an opinion as to whether or not the person or the conduct, in question, measures up to that standard. On that question the court must instruct the jury as to the law, and the jury must draw its own conclusion from the evidence. Id. at 361, 5 N.W.2d at 663. For forty years, we continued to apply the Grismore prohibition against opinion testimony on issues of law and mixed law and fact in a variety of contexts. [1] Then, in 1983, we adopted the Iowa Rules of Evidence.