Opinion ID: 2750180
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony Regarding the Society

Text: As a component of their larger argument assigning error to the trial justice’s application of Berman I, plaintiffs take issue with the introduction of testimony regarding the nature of the relationship between the society and the Cliff Walk. Distilled to its essence, plaintiffs’ contention is that they were prejudiced by allegedly irrelevant and immaterial evidence. Like other evidentiary issues, we review the “admission of evidence objected to as being irrelevant or immaterial” under the abuse of discretion lens. Gaglione v. Cardi, 120 R.I. 534, 538, 388 A.2d - 14 - 361, 363 (1978). Indeed, “[t]he determination of whether evidence is relevant is confided to the sound discretion of the trial justice   .” State v. Silvia, 898 A.2d 707, 716 (R.I. 2006). “Furthermore, it is the burden of the party opposing such evidence to establish that the proposed evidence clearly has no bearing on the proceedings.” Jones v. Wilbur, 604 A.2d 779, 780 (R.I. 1992). Specifically, plaintiffs disagree with the introduction of testimony that indicated: (1) that the society was the owner of the specific piece of land on which Simcha sustained injury; and (2) that the city and state needed permission from landowners whose property abuts the Cliff Walk, including the society, to install signage or fencing on the property owners’ land. This grievance fails to acknowledge that this testimony was elicited from plaintiffs’ own witness. A party faces a trying task to complain that its own witness’s testimony treaded into troublesome territory. 7 While one of the state’s witnesses also testified to these same facts, we find that “the admission of [the testimony] was not prejudicial error, since it appears substantially without objection elsewhere in the transcript” of plaintiffs’ own witness. Grygiel v. Grygiel, 68 R.I. 155, 158, 26 A.2d 743, 744 (1942). Therefore, even “assuming that some of such testimony was not material, we do not agree that it was so prejudicial as to require a new trial.” Conneally, 82 R.I. at 142, 107 A.2d at 311.