Court Opinion

ID: 9540912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:20:45.998569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:41.870785
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s ruling that the trial court erred in its refusal to let an expert witness, Crawford, testify in appellant’s case-in-chief or in rebuttal. Crawford was not listed as a prospective witness in the pre-trial order. The pre-trial order was entered Novem*189ber 22, the day after the jury was chosen and the day before testimony began. The pre-trial order provided that no witness would be called whose name and address had not been previously furnished to the other side. It was within the trial court’s discretion to disallow the witness, particularly since the pre-trial order required it. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Reynolds, 138 Ga. App. 582 (227 SE2d 77); Sackett v. L. L. Minor Co., 244 Ga. 375 (260 SE2d 37). It is not reversible error to disallow a witness for rebuttal purposes where the proffered testimony of the witness would have been cumulative, as in this case. Klemme Cattle Co. v. Westwind Cattle Co., 156 Ga. App. 353, 355 (274 SE2d 738). See esp. OCGA § 9-11-16 where it is provided that a pre-trial order controls the subsequent course of the trial, “unless modified at the trial to prevent manifest injustice.” Klemme Cattle Co., supra. Where evidence is cumulative, there is generally no such “manifest injustice” that would permit us to disturb the trial court’s discretion. Klemme Cattle Co., supra. No motion was made to modify the pre-trial order in this case, and I do not think the trial court abused its discretion in abiding by it. See Gilbert v. Meason, 145 Ga. App. 662, 663 (244 SE2d 601), quoting Dumas v. Beasley, 218 Ga. 349, 352 (128 SE2d 59) where the Supreme Court held: “While the trial judge might, under the particular facts of some case, modify the pretrial order without request to prevent manifest injustice, it is difficult to imagine any case where it could be held that the trial judge abused his discretion in failing to modify a pretrial order where there had been no motion for such modification before or during the trial.”
Decided March 12, 1985
Rehearing denied March 27, 1985
J. Noel Osteen, Edward J. Bauer, for appellants.
Thomas J. Mahoney, Jr., for appellees.
I therefore respectfully dissent from the majority’s ruling in Division 1. I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Deen and Judge Sognier join in this dissent.