Opinion ID: 6108206
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial Court's Abuse of Discretion Was Harmful

Text: Trial court error is reversible only when harmful, that is, if the error probably caused the rendition of an improper judgment. 44 This standard is less a precise measurement and more a matter of judgment. 45 We review the entire record to assess the importance of the excluded evidence, and exclusion is likely harmful if the evidence is crucial to a key issue. 46 Having reviewed the record as a whole, we conclude excluding the surveillance video was harmful. At trial, Williams testified he cannot work because of his pain, medication, and related physical limitations. He told the jury about his constant pain and daily struggles in trying to do activities he enjoys even for short periods, like working on his truck or operating his mini-excavator, and how he pays for it later when he does. A parade of friends and family members recounted their observations of Williams-his inability to do certain things, his deteriorating condition, and the pain visible on his face. Williams's counsel directly asked each witness if Williams's pain was real, and they all said it was, based on what they had seen. During pretrial proceedings, Williams argued these witnesses were important, stating it's clearly directly probative for somebody who's an eyewitness to say, 'This is what I physically see in this man before and after.'  If testimony about what others saw Williams do was important, then giving the jury an opportunity to actually witness Williams performing similar activities is just as important. Subjective pain and suffering is difficult to refute. Seeing how Williams looked performing physical labor on two consecutive days, unaware of being recorded and thus with no incentive to exaggerate, is qualitatively different than hearing his and his witnesses' descriptions and would likely have had a powerful impact. Furthermore, the video could have supported the FCE's conclusions that Williams was able to perform medium-intensity work and was exaggerating his symptoms while understating his abilities. Williams's experts discounted the FCE as being out of date, but the surveillance video, taken seventeen months after the FCE and nine months before trial, would have provided more recent, and therefore potent, cross-examination material to undermine their opinions. Conversely, the video could have bolstered Diamond's experts, who relied on the FCE, and allowed Diamond's spinal expert to explain to the jury, as he did during his offer of proof, that seeing the video changed his opinion regarding Williams's work abilities and reinforced the FCE's conclusions. 47  Two-thirds of the jury's nearly $10 million damages finding consisted of soft damages, such as pain and suffering, for which no objective measure is available. Seeing the video and considering its effect on the testifying witness could have altered those subjective numbers and the amounts awarded for lost earning capacity if the jury believed Williams could hold some type of job. 48 Williams's credibility was a central defensive issue, not just regarding pain and physical limitations but also on liability. Diamond explicitly and repeatedly advocated that Williams had lied about the circumstances giving rise to his injury, which directly related to Diamond's liability. If, with the aid of the video, the jury had believed Williams or his witnesses were exaggerating his pain and physical limitations, it might have undermined his overall credibility. 49 Because the video was crucial to the defensive theories of exaggeration and dishonesty, the video's exclusion probably caused the rendition of an improper judgment and was, therefore, harmful error. 50