Opinion ID: 1900428
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of a Similar Representation

Text: Defendant first argues that the trial court committed reversible error by allowing one of Plaintiff's witnesses to testify about a similar representation made to him by Defendant during a different transaction. Specifically, Defendant argues that this similar representation occurred in a transaction too removed in time from any representation he made to Plaintiff during their transaction to be of any probative value. Indeed, our evidentiary rule of similar representations, as set forth in C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence § 70.03(1) (3d ed. 1977), states: Once there is evidence that the representation to the plaintiff was false, the plaintiff may then offer evidence of similar representations to others about the same time for the purpose of bolstering the conclusion that the representation to him was false. (Emphasis added; footnotes omitted.) In the instant case, Defendant first made fraudulent representations to Plaintiff in 1972. Plaintiff's witness testified that the Defendant made similar representations to him in a transaction that occurred in 1981 or 1982. Yet, in ruling that this witness's testimony was admissible, the trial judge stated: I don't have to explain why I ruled, but I will tell you the reason. I finally ruled this waywhere it will be on the record and be clearis that it occurred to me that this has got to be a continuing type fraud where different transactions were being made where the person that made the deposit said he had no knowledge that they were made. And that's why I finally let it in. We agree with the trial court's characterization of the instant conduct as a continuing type of fraud. Defendant's first representation to Plaintiff occurred in 1972, but Defendant made other representations to Plaintiff over a period of several years in order to conceal and perpetuate his fraud. Indeed, Plaintiff did not discover the fraud until 1981. Moreover, [w]hether or not the offer of evidence will be denied on the ground of remoteness is a question to be decided by the trial court in the exercise of sound discretion, and such ruling by trial court will not be revised on appeal unless it is plain that error was committed. Roan v. Smith, 272 Ala. 538, 541, 133 So.2d 224, 227 (1961). We find no abuse of discretion in the trial judge's allowance of this witness's similar representation testimony.