Opinion ID: 1937369
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: exclusion of testimony on direct examination

Text: Rose asserts that the trial court erred in refusing to allow George Rose's testimony, on direct examination, regarding loss of access to Roses' real estate. However, on rebuttal George Rose did testify about restricted access to the remainder after the city's acquisition of the site for its water main. Rose does not contend or demonstrate that George Rose's testimony on rebuttal was different from the testimony which the court excluded during his direct examination. In a civil case, to constitute reversible error contemplated in Neb.Evid.R. 103(1) (Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27-103(1) (Reissue 1985)), admission or exclusion of evidence must unfairly prejudice a substantial right of a litigant complaining about such evidence admitted or excluded. See Alliance Nat. Bank v. State Surety Co., 223 Neb. 403, 414, 390 N.W.2d 487, 494 (1986). In Lautenschlager v. Lautenschlager, 134 Neb. 577, 581-82, 279 N.W. 200, 202 (1938), this court stated: It is but the statement of a truism to say that in a trial to the court where evidence is excluded erroneously, but where the same evidence is elicited from the same witness and admitted later on in the trial of the case and is fully and completely presented, error cannot be predicated on such erroneous rejection. The principle controlling this situation has been before this court on a number of occasions and the following pronouncements have been made: Error in excluding evidence is cured by its subsequent admission. See, also, Gugelman v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., 137 Neb. 411, 413, 289 N.W. 842, 843 (1940): `Alleged error in the exclusion of offered testimony is of no avail if the same testimony, or testimony to the same effect, had been, or was afterwards, allowed to be given by the witness.' (Quoting from Union P.R. Co. v. Evans, 52 Neb. 50, 71 N.W. 1062 (1897).) Consequently, alleged error in excluding a witness' testimony is cured when the initially excluded testimony is later elicited through the same witness. Rose has not shown prejudicial error in the trial court's refusing to allow George Rose's testimony during direct examination on the subject of restricted access for the remainder of Roses' real estate.