Court Opinion

ID: 9717481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:04:17.069782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:53.406509
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
Justice COOPER.
There were five eyewitnesses to this pedestrian/automobile accident. Plaintiff/Appellant, Amanda Baker, and three other teenage girls, Leah Edmonds, Aleisha Sams, and Tamara Thibodeaux, were pedestrians intending to cross Carothers Road at its intersection with Monmouth Street in the city of Newport. Defendant/Appellee, Theresa Kammerer, was operating her vehicle from east to west on Carothers Road. Baker stepped into the intersection and was struck by Kammerer’s vehicle. Kammerer testified that the traffic light was green for traffic on Car-others Road. Baker, Edmonds, Sams, and Thibodeaux all testified that the traffic light was red for traffic on Carothers Road. Sams testified that she saw Kam-merer’s vehicle approaching and stretched out her arms to prevent Edmonds and Thibodeaux from stepping into the intersection; unfortunately, her reach did not extend to Baker. The jury obviously believed Kammerer and disbelieved Baker, Edmonds, Sams, and Thibodeaux. The majority of this Court now reverses this case for a new trial solely because the trial court did not permit Baker’s trial counsel to tell the jury that Hope Frost, an impeachment witness for Kammerer, was an employee of Kammerer’s liability insurer.
When Kammerer’s trial counsel announced his intent to call Frost as a witness, Baker’s counsel asked for an in-chambers hearing, at which he objected on grounds that Frost had not been listed as *298a witness on Kammerer’s pre-trial “exchange of information.” Counsel then stated that if Frost were permitted to testify, “that would open the door to discussing where she works, who she works for, and I think that would certainly not help their case because then the jury would know they were dealing with an insurance company, in fairness to the defendant, and they have to explain somehow where this lady comes from.” At no time did counsel claim during either the bench conference prior to opening statements or in the chambers conference on this issue that his reason for wanting to identify Frost as an employee of Kammerer’s insurer was to show her bias as a witness. Kammerer’s trial counsel then explained that Frost had not been listed on the exchange of information because he had not expected Edmonds and Sams to testify that the traffic light was red for traffic on Carothers Road. After hearing these arguments, the trial court ruled that Kammerer could call Frost as a witness and “contrary to what counsel says, it will be a mistrial if you do it [identify Frost as an insurance representative]; you can state that she’s an investigator.” Obviously, the trial court’s ruling was in response to counsel’s argument that “they have to explain somehow where this lady comes from,” and not in response to an unspoken claim that the evidence was admissible to show bias.1
On direct examination, Frost testified that she had separate telephone conversations with Edmonds and Sams and that Sams told her that she was not in a position to see the color of the traffic light. On cross-examination, Baker’s attorney asked Frost to produce her notes of her conversations with Edmonds and Sams and told her to “give those to your attorney and let him look at them first,” whereupon Frost left the witness stand, retrieved her notes, and handed them to Kammerer’s attorney who, with the trial court’s permission, tore off a portion of Frost’s notes that reflected a settlement offer — all in the presence of the jury. Thus, the jury learned that Kammerer’s attorney was also Frost’s attorney and that their relationship was such that he could destroy a portion of Frost’s notes. Baker’s counsel then elicited from Frost that her notes did not reflect the statement allegedly made to her by Sams, and that they did reflect that Edmonds told her that the light was red for traffic on Carothers Road. (!)
KRE 611(b) permits the trial court, “[i]n the interests of justice,” to limit cross-examination with respect to matters not testified to on direct examination. KRE 411 “does not require the exclusion of evidence of insurance ... when offered for another purpose, such as proof of ... bias or prejudice of a witness.” (Emphasis added.) However, neither does it require the admission of such evidence — especially where, as here, the trial court was never advised that it was being offered for that purpose. Even if the trial court had been advised of the “other purpose” for introducing the evidence, the trial court was required to weigh the probative value of the evidence against its prejudicial effect. KRE 403; Wallace v. Leedhanachoke, 949 S.W.2d 624, 626-28 (Ky.App.1996). Here, Frost was not a substantive witness offering direct evidence relevant to prove who was at fault. Compare Triplett v. Napier, 286 S.W.2d 87, 88-89 (Ky.1956) (witness was engineer/architect retained by insur-*299anee company to testify to measurements he made and to safety of allegedly defective stairway); Lexington Glass Co. v. Zurich Gen. Accident & Liab. Ins. Co., 271 S.W.2d 909, 911 (Ky.1954) (witness testified to measurements he made at the accident scene). Frost was only an impeachment witness — and her testimony only marginally impeached one of three eyewitnesses who testified for the plaintiff. She did not testify that Sams told her the light was green for traffic on Carothers Road (which would have tended to prove fault), but only that Sams told her that she was not in a position to see the light (which tended only to impeach Sams’s credibility). Under these circumstances, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the probative value of showing Frost’s implied bias was substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect of interjecting evidence of liability insurance into the ease.
Although the majority opinion assumes that Baker’s counsel had an unexpressed “other purpose” of seeking to prove the nature of Frost’s employment in order to show bias, it declines to assume that the trial judge conducted the KRE 403 balancing test because he did not expressly articulate such on the record when making his ruling. Of course, that does not mean that he did not conduct the test sub silentio while listening to the arguments of counsel. If we are going to reverse for a new trial every case in which a trial judge either admits or excludes evidence without specifically stating on the record that “the probative value of this evidence [is] [is not] substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect,” then we are going to clog our trial dockets with unnecessary retrials of eases that were fairly and properly tried in the first place. Until today, we have assumed for purposes of review that trial courts do conduct the KRE 403 balancing test and admit or exclude evidence on that basis, which we then review for abuse of discretion. In more than nine years on this Court, I can recall reviewing only one trial videotape in which the trial court specifically articulated the KRE 403 balancing test on the record. (Furthermore, I do not recall in my almost eighteen years as a trial judge ever personally articulating the KRE 403 balancing test on the record — or ever having a case reversed because of my failure to do so.)
In addition to all of the above, Baker’s attorney did, in fact, inform the jury that Frost was biased in favor of the defense by referring to Kammerer’s attorney as “your [Frost’s] attorney.” In that respect, the facts of this case are similar to those in Herbold v. Ford Motor Co., 310 Ky. 697, 221 S.W.2d 646 (1949), also a pedestrian/automobile collision case. The plaintiff in Herbold was attempting to cross a six-lane boulevard at an intersection governed by a traffic light. The light was red for traffic on the boulevard when she began to cross but apparently turned green before she reached the other side. She was struck by the defendant’s pickup truck as she attempted to dodge traffic in an effort to reach the sidewalk. A witness for the plaintiff testified that the defendant had passed him at a high rate of speed just prior to the accident. An associate attorney in defense counsel’s law firm then impeached that testimony by producing a written statement that he had obtained from the witness prior to trial in which the witness had stated only that the plaintiff was struck while attempting to run across the highway in the middle of the block. The attorney admitted that he was associated with the law firm representing the defendant. The trial court overruled the plaintiffs motion to be allowed to also show that the attorney’s law firm was being paid by the defendant’s liability insurer. Id., 221 S.W.2d at 649. Our predecessor court held that since the witness had *300already admitted his connection with the defendant, “the rejection of the proffered evidence was not a prejudicial error.” Id. At worst, I would reach the same conclusion in this case, though I find no error at all.
Accordingly, I dissent and would affirm both the trial court and the Court of Appeals.
SCOTT, and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join this dissenting opinion.

. The trial court’s subsequent explanation that he "would not be ruling this way” if Baker had filed a more complete exchange of information obviously related to his decision to permit Frost to testify even though she had not been listed on Kammerer’s exchange of information.