Court Opinion

ID: 9398436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-31 14:04:20.745622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:33.670373
License: Public Domain

Cite as 2023 Ark. App. 321
                   ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
                                       DIVISION IV
                                       No. CR-22-531

 NEDRA FIELDS                                  Opinion Delivered May   31, 2023
                               APPELLANT
                                               APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
                                               COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
 V.                                            FIRST DIVISION
                                               [NO. 60CR-19-1940]
 STATE OF ARKANSAS
                                 APPELLEE HONORABLE LEON JOHNSON,
                                          JUDGE

                                               AFFIRMED

                                BART F. VIRDEN, Judge

       The Pulaski County Circuit Court convicted appellant Nedra Fields of committing a

fraudulent insurance act. The trial court placed her on probation for a period of two years

and ordered her to pay a fine and court costs. Fields argues that the trial court abused its

discretion by admitting prejudicial hearsay evidence. We affirm.

                                       I. Background

       The testimony at Fields’s bench trial established the following sequence of events. On

July 29, 2018, Scott Johnson, a police officer at UAMS, was dispatched to a report of an

accident in the hospital’s employee parking deck. Fields told Johnson that she had been

sitting in her parked 2002 white Ford Explorer taking a break when a 2018 black Mercedes-

Benz backed into her vehicle while maneuvering into a parking space. Fields claimed that
the driver of the Mercedes had gotten out of the vehicle and walked into the hospital without

acknowledging the accident or Fields’s pleas to stop. Johnson saw very little damage to either

vehicle. He nevertheless completed an incident report containing the insurance information

for the Mercedes and gave Fields a copy of the report. Dr. Swathi Kovelamudi, the driver of

the Mercedes, testified that she was surprised to receive a call from her insurer, Esurance, a

couple of days after the alleged accident, informing her that a claim had been made. She

denied having hit another vehicle.

       An audio recording of Fields’s telephone call to Esurance on July 31 was played in

court without objection. On the recording, Fields stated that she was calling to “start the

process” and reported that she had been involved in an accident with Esurance’s insured. In

describing the accident to the Esurance representative, Fields claimed that Dr. Kovelamudi

had struck her vehicle twice from behind. Fields described that her vehicle’s rear bumper

had been “pushed up a little and it’s got a nice dent in it.” Fields stated that the Mercedes

had some damage as well in that the rear bumper had been dented and had some of her

vehicle’s white paint on it. Fields also told the representative that she planned to get an

estimate on repairs to her vehicle and that she had already been to a chiropractor because

she had hurt her neck and back. The representative told Fields, “Give me one second just to

submit this information so it can generate for us a claim number.” Fields agreed to text-

message updates about her claim and was told that an adjuster would contact her that day to

“go over the next steps in the claims process.” Fields asked what information she needed to

provide to her chiropractor, and the representative told her to give him or her the incident

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report or the claim number and “then they should be able to speak with us in regard to this

claim.”

          An investigator was assigned to investigate what Esurance described as a suspicious

hit-and-run claim. After inspecting Dr. Kovelamudi’s Mercedes and finding no damage, the

investigator sought a warrant for Fields’s arrest.

          Fields testified about the circumstances of the accident. She downplayed both her

personal injuries and property damage. She stated that she did not know whether her neck

and back pain were the result of the car accident or from the stress of her job. Fields further

testified that there were a lot of dents on her vehicle’s bumper prior to the accident and that

she had gotten an estimate for repairs because she had been instructed to do so by Esurance.

          Chip Casper, a regional manager for Esurance, testified that a claim file had been

prepared with respect to Fields’s claim involving Dr. Kovelamudi. As part of the claim file,

Fields’s initial telephone call to Esurance had been recorded and transcribed. Casper was

then asked about the other contents of the claim file and confirmed that Fields had claimed

that she sustained personal injuries and property damage. When Casper was asked about

Esurance’s “exposure” in connection with Fields’s claim, he referred to two exhibits in the

claim file: exhibit No. 26, which was a bill for neck and back injuries that had been faxed to

Esurance from Central Arkansas Chiro, and exhibit No. 27, which was an estimate from

Landers Autobody to repair damage to Fields’s vehicle.

          Counsel for Fields objected to each exhibit on the basis of hearsay and argued that

the exhibits did not qualify under the business-records exception pursuant to Ark. R. Evid.

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803(6). The trial court initially overruled defense counsel’s objections, but the trial court

later revisited both of its earlier rulings and concluded that the exhibits were not hearsay

because they had not been offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. The following

exchange occurred between the trial court and defense counsel:

       [DEFENSE COUNSEL]:           So it’s offered for the limited purpose that she did go to
                                    a chiropractic clinic and she did get an estimate for her
                                    damages?

       THE COURT:                   That’s all it’s offered for, yes.

       [DEFENSE COUNSEL]:           But not for any particulars?

       THE COURT:                   Right.

                                          II. Discussion

       A person shall not commit a fraudulent insurance act. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-66-502(a)

(Repl. 2012). “Fraudulent insurance act” means an act or omission committed by a person

who, knowingly and with intent to defraud, presents or causes to be presented to an insurer

false information as part of or in support of a claim for payment or benefit pursuant to an

insurance policy. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-66-501(4)(A)(iii) (Supp. 2021).

       “Hearsay” is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the

trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Ark. R. Evid.

801(c). Hearsay is not admissible except as provided by law or by the Rules of Evidence. Ark.

R. Evid. 802. A statement made out of court is not hearsay if offered for the purpose of

proving the statement was made. Jackson v. State, 274 Ark. 317, 624 S.W.2d 437 (1981). The

decision to admit or exclude evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial court.

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Sitzmann v. State, 2019 Ark. App. 78, 569 S.W.3d 913. An appellate court will not reverse a

trial court’s ruling on a hearsay objection unless the appellant can demonstrate an abuse of

discretion. Id. An abuse of discretion is a high threshold that does not simply require error

in the trial court’s decision but requires that the trial court act improvidently, thoughtlessly,

or without due consideration. Id. Additionally, this court will not reverse an evidentiary

ruling absent a showing of prejudice. Id.

       In arguing that the trial court erred in admitting hearsay, Fields contends that there

were two truths asserted by the exhibits: (1) that she, either directly or indirectly, submitted

an insurance claim, and (2) that the claim was for a payment or benefit. Fields argues that

she was prejudiced by the trial court’s ruling that the exhibits were not hearsay because there

was no other proof that she had made a claim and had sought a payment or benefit.

       We first note that Fields has changed her argument on appeal. Below, after obtaining

clarification as to the basis of the court’s ruling on admissibility, set forth above, defense

counsel continued to object on the basis that the exhibits did not qualify under the business-

records exception. Defense counsel also said the following:

              Well, I understand the State’s not agreeing with what Ms. Fields said was her
       damages, but they’re saying that it’s true that she said those things that are in the
       records. So you’re saying that—I mean, I think that you’re saying they’re automatically
       the truth that she did actually claim that stuff.

The trial court responded, “No . . . the Court’s not looking at it like that.” It is well settled

that a party is bound by the nature and scope of the objections and arguments made at trial

                                               5
and may not enlarge or change those grounds on appeal. Sullivan v. State, 2012 Ark. 74, 386

S.W.3d 507.

       In any event, we agree with the trial court that the exhibits were not hearsay because

they were not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Here, the only matters both

asserted by the exhibits and considered by the trial court were simply that Fields had gone to

a chiropractor to be treated for neck and back pain and that her vehicle had been taken to

an auto-body shop to get an estimate to repair damage. Neither the extent of Fields’s personal

injuries and property damage nor the cost to treat her injuries and to repair that damage

were “truths” that the trial court needed to consider in determining whether the elements

of the fraudulent-insurance-act statute were proved. Both exhibits were part of a claim file

compiled by Esurance in connection with the claims process that Fields herself began when

she called and spoke with an Esurance representative. Esurance generated a claim number

for Fields. Fields questioned the representative about what she needed to provide to ensure

that records related to her claim were transmitted to Esurance, and Casper confirmed that

those records had, in fact, made it into Esurance’s claim file. Fields does not explain, and it

is not apparent to us, what—if not a payment or, more broadly, a benefit—she could have

been seeking by contacting a third-party’s automobile insurance provider about its insured,

whom she had accused of being at fault in a car accident. We cannot say that the trial court

abused its discretion in admitting the exhibits for a nonhearsay purpose.

       While Fields claims that there was no other evidence that she submitted a claim for

payment or benefit, her telephone call to Esurance demonstrated that she initiated the claims

                                              6
process, that she asserted personal injuries and property damage allegedly caused by its

insured, and that Esurance assigned to the claim a number in response to Fields’s allegations.

There is no apparent reason that we can discern for contacting another party’s insurer about

damages allegedly caused by its insured other than a desire to be somehow compensated.

Moreover, Casper confirmed that Esurance’s claim file contained records related to Fields’s

claim for damages for which Esurance faced some financial exposure.

       Furthermore, although Fields suggests that the trial court considered the exhibits for

the truth of the matter asserted, in cases tried without a jury, there is a presumption that a

trial court will consider only competent evidence. Banks v. State, 2009 Ark. 483, 347 S.W.3d

31. Here, in addition to this presumption, the trial court expressly stated that it considered

the evidence for a limited purpose and did not consider any truth asserted by the individual

records themselves. In the absence of a showing to the contrary, we accept that the trial court

did not consider the exhibits for any improper purpose.

       Affirmed.

       HARRISON, C.J., and ABRAMSON, J., agree.

       Mac J. Carder, Public Defender, by: Clint Miller, Deputy Public Defender, for

appellant.

       Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Michael Zangari, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

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