Opinion ID: 901196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Settlement Negotiation Evidence

Text: [¶ 11.] Before this lawsuit was commenced, Trust wrote to Parker requesting Parker to give Trust a formal easement of 22 feet. Parker's written reply was entered into evidence. The contents of the letter are as follows: I have read over your proposal and then did some research of my own concerning this property. I contacted the Planning & Zoning offices in Sioux Falls. According to code, I have the minimum amount of parking places in my lot that is required. I cannot give up an additional 12' of parking space for the sole benefit of your client. Therefore, I cannot sign your proposal which only benefits the Scotts and puts me in violation of city code, prohibits expansion of my own business and limits the type of current or future tenants of my building. I will continue to honor the prescriptive easement, which is the 10' wide space, marked with an X in the parking lot. This past, verbal agreement, is vague at best. What parties made the agreement? The landowners or the tenants? When did this happen? When did the Scott family acquire 816 W 11th? Was it before 1919, or after 1939? Did anyone witness the verbal agreement? Parker resisted the entry of this letter into evidence. She claimed it was part of settlement negotiation and not admissible under SDCL 19-12-10 (Rule 408). The trial court ruled that if Parker testified that a prescriptive easement did not exist, the letter would come in for impeachment purposes as a prior inconsistent statement. The letter was admitted as part of Parker's cross-examination. Parker argues admission of the letter was prejudicial error because the trial court based its decision, in part, on Parker's acknowledgment of a prescriptive easement in the letter. Trust fails to answer or address this issue in its brief. [¶ 12.] Based on the trial court's memorandum decision and findings of facts, it appears the trial court used the information in the letter as it related to Parker's knowledge of Trust's adverse use of her property. The trial court included in its findings that Parker was aware the easement existed prior to purchasing the property. The trial court found, In 1994, Defendant purchased her property and she has since acknowledged the easement in a letter to Attorney Nichols, dated March 13, 2002. Parker's knowledge was one of the elements Trust was required to prove in order to establish a prescriptive easement. [¶ 13.] It is a rule that documents written in an attempt to settle a dispute are not admissible to prove the validity of the issue in dispute. SDCL 19-12-10. SDCL 19-12-10 provides: Evidence of: (1) Furnishing or offering or promising to furnish; or (2) Accepting or offering or promising to accept, a valuable consideration in compromising or attempting to compromise a claim which was disputed as to either validity or amount, is not admissible to prove liability for or invalidity of the claim or its amount. Evidence of conduct or statements made in compromise negotiations is likewise not admissible. This section does not require the exclusion of any evidence otherwise discoverable merely because it is presented in the course of compromise negotiations. This section also does not require exclusion when the evidence is offered for another purpose, such as proving bias or prejudice of a witness, negativing a contention of undue delay or proving an effort to obstruct a criminal investigation or prosecution. Id. (emphasis added). One basis for this rule is the public policy of encouraging settlement. Roso v. Henning, 1997 SD 82, ¶ 13, n. 3, 566 N.W.2d 136, 142 n. 3 (citing 2 J. Strong, McCormick on Evidence § 194 (4th ed. 1992)). Offers of compromise to prove liability would discourage settlement. Id. Here, the letter was offered to show Parker had previously admitted the existence of an easement. Clearly, this is the kind of evidence the rule seeks to protect. Although the statute provides that negotiation material may be used for another purpose, it may not be used to impeach or to prove the disputed issue. Discussing Federal Rule of Evidence 408, the federal counterpart of SDCL 19-12-10, McCormick states: Use of statements made in compromise negotiations to impeach the testimony of a party ... is fraught with danger of misuse of the statements to prove liability, threatens frank interchange of information during negotiations, and generally should not be permitted. 2 J.W. Strong, McCormick on Evidence § 266 (5th ed. 1999). Admitting the letter to show a prior inconsistent statement or to prove a disputed issue undermines the policy reason behind the rule of encouraging settlement through open negotiation. See EEOC v. Gear Petroleum, Inc., 948 F.2d 1542, 1545-46 (10th Cir.1991). Admitting the letter into evidence was error. [¶ 14.] Parker claims the error is prejudicial warranting reversal. Prejudicial error is that which, in all probability, has produced some effect upon the final result and to have affected the rights of the party assigning that error. State v. Eagle Hawk, 411 N.W.2d 120, 126 (S.D.1987); see also State v. Bittner, 359 N.W.2d 121, 125; State v. Dace, 333 N.W.2d 812, 816 (S.D.1983); Matter of M.B., 288 N.W.2d 773, 776 (S.D.1980); Larson v. Locken, 262 N.W.2d 752, 757 (S.D.1978). Where inadmissible evidence admitted at trial is cumulative only and other admissible evidence supports the result, the cumulative evidence, though inadmissible, is nonprejudicial. Matter of N.J.W., 273 N.W.2d 134, 138 (S.D.1978); Matter of D.T., 89 S.D. 590, 599, 237 N.W.2d 166, 171 (1975); Alberts v. Mutual Service Casualty Insurance Co., 80 S.D. 303, 315, 123 N.W.2d 96, 103 (1963). [¶ 15.] A review of the letter evidence indicates it was cumulative. Additionally, the issue for which it was considered was not disputed by Parker. The trial court refers to Parker's letter of negotiation as it relates to Parker's knowledge of Trust's use of her property for ingress and egress. Parker did not dispute she had knowledge. In fact, Parker's proposed findings include a finding that admits Trust had been using [Parker's] parking lot, open to the public, as a driveway onto its property. Since Parker's knowledge was not in dispute in this case, the letter was cumulative and nonprejudicial. Significant also is that this was a court trial. We have previously stated that [w]hen an action is tried to the court, the presumption is that improperly admitted testimony is disregarded. In a trial to the court in which admissible evidence supports the findings, [additional] evidence, though inadmissible, is nonprejudicial. Matter of R.S.S., 474 N.W.2d 743, 750 (S.D.1991) ( citing Achtien v. City of Deadwood, 408 N.W.2d 756, 758 (S.D.1987)). Although admitting the letter was error, under the facts of this case, the error was harmless. [¶ 16.] Parker raised other issues that will not be addressed because they were not preserved for appeal. [¶ 17.] GILBERTSON, Chief Justice, and KONENKAMP and ZINTER, Justices, concur. [¶ 18.] SABERS, Justice, concurs with a writing.