Court Opinion

ID: 9646913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:16:04.150733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:43.606497
License: Public Domain

GRANT, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the results reached by the majority. A trial judge has considerable leeway in controlling the order of the evidence so that it will be understandable to the jury and at the same time to avoid delay. Furthermore, he has a duty to allow the opposing side to introduce evidence, which in this case was portions of a deposition, which ought in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with the evidence introduces initially. Tex.R.Civ.Evid. 106. The altered sequence of the video deposition could potentially have caused a delay or denied the opposing party the opportunity to contemporaneously and fairly offer other portions of the deposition. The trial judge expressed this concern in making the ruling.8 For that reason I do not find that the trial court erred in excluding the edited version of the videotaped deposition that altered the order of the deposition and was not submitted to opposing counsel prior to the trial.
The offer into evidence of the unedited video deposition came after the written deposition had been read into evidence. At that point in the trial, the trial judge could validly rule that the video deposition was cumulative of the evidence already introduced.

. THE COURT: And for the purpose of the record, the Court sustained the motion of the defendant to disallow the actual playing of the video deposition, as I understood it, on the basis that either side, as I understand the rules — that either side that introduces a deposition now has the right to have the cross examination of that— of their deposition taken or made known to the jury, and so that there would be a chronological order to the evidence that is produced by that deposition; and my understanding is that either side has a right to have the direct examination, then the cross examination, re-direct examination, re-cross examination made in those chronological orders. Since it was not done in that fashion, it was the opinion of this Court that it would be unfair to the jury and unfair to the parties to allow direct, re-direct, maybe re-redirect, without the jury knowing what the redirect evidence covered.