Court Opinion

ID: 9795511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:30:28.499159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:30:10.597524
License: Public Domain

OPALA, V.C.J.,
concurring.
1 I accede to the court's opinion and to the disposition made of this case. I write in concurrence to explain that analysis which persuades me to join today's pronouncement.
T2 1) The critical and dispositive issue here is whether the trial court's grant of new trial is rested on a "pure error of law."1 I agree that it is and that it must be reversed.
*142T3 2) The trial court perceived that its refusal to allow the defendant to offer evidence of a third party's negligence was fatally erroneous. In this view the trial judge was clearly mistaken for two reasons:
T4 a) Qua land possessor, the defendant owed the injured invitee an ex delicto duty that is nondelegable.2 The possessor's indivisible liability may not be apportioned based upon the percentage of harm a nonparty actor may have inflicted upon the invitee in the same injurious event.3 In short, in this invitee's tort suit brought solely against the land possessor,4 the latter's premises liability cannot be subjected to comparison with that of any other actor or co-actor. Whether pressed in the same action or elsewhere, the land possessor's own claim against one alleged to have been a third-party actor in the very same occurrence may be prosecuted-after settlement or recovery by the invitee-in common-law indemnity,5 for statutory contribution,6 or upon either or both of these theories.
T5 b) Even if erroncous, the evidentiary exclusion of a third party's negligence was never preserved by a formal ruling fit for appellate review. In the course of trial the land possessor failed to make the required proffer 7 of facts showing a third party's negligence.8 Neither an in limine ruling nor any other nisi prius exclusionary action will ever preserve for appellate review an error in rejecting evidence tendered or sought to be adduced unless proof is offered in the course of trial, which is followed by an objection that stands sustained, and proffer of the excluded facts then follows for the record. Moreover, the courtroom scenario of the entire occurrence must be shown in the tran-seript of oral proceedings incorporated into the record for appeal.9
6 Put more simply, a party aggrieved by any nisi prius exclusionary ruling, whether in limine, tentative, formal or informal, must first seek to elicit the evidence judicially deemed as exeludable and, when an objection to its admission is interposed and sustained, must then make a proffer that outlines the proof that would have been adduced had the objection not been sustained.10
*1437 3) Land possessor's own claim brought against the third party in this action, if indeed actionable, is to be regarded as separate, distinct from, and unaffected by that pressed by the invitee. The latter clearly lies in tort,11 the former may be viewed as in indemnity 12 or perhaps as one for statutory contribution.13
SUMMARY
T8 In sum, the record for this appeal, which so clearly falls short of demonstrating a flawed in-trial evidentiary ruling in the nisi prius exelusion of third party's negligence, gives unequivocal support for the trial court's commission of a reversible error by granting the defendant a new trial.14
T 9 The trial judge's exclusion of evidence that would have shown a third party's negli-genee is error free. If proof of that negli-genee had been proffered during trial-after an objection by the plaintiff-the exclusionary ruling would not have been an error.15 I am hence compelled to conclude, as the court does today, that the nisi prius new trial grant rests on a pure error of law. It cannot be allowed to stand.16

. When a judge's new-trial grant is rested on an error in resolving a "pure, simple, and unmixed question of law," it must be reversed. Bishop's *142Restaurants, Inc. of Tulsa v. Whomble, 1960 OK 44, ¶6, 355 P.2d 560, 563.

. A land possessor is liable for all defects upon the land because its duty to exercise reasonable care for the safety of an invitee is nondelegable. Copeland v. Lodge Enterprises, Inc., 2000 OK 36, ¶12, 4 P.3d 695, 700; Boyles v. Oklahoma Natural Gas Co., 1980 OK 163, ¶21, 619 P.2d 613, 619 (the land possessor has an "independent nondelegable duty" to prevent danger from its premises to persons on the sidewalk). Nondele-gable duties are addressed in the Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 416-425.

. If the principle of nondelegability is invoked, as it was done in this case, the land possessor's liability to the invitee clearly is indivisible.

. Having herself chosen the land possessor for imposition of premises liability as her lone adversary in the action, the plaintiff may not be barred from invoking the targeted defendant's nondele-gable (indivisible) duty to the invitee.

. Porter v. Norton-Stuart Pontiac-Cadillac of Enid, 1965 OK 18, 405 P.2d 109.

. 12 0.$.2001 § 832.

. Brack's Law Dictionary 1090 (5th ed.1979) defines a "proffer" as "offer or tender, as, the production of a document and offer of the same in evidence." Regier v. Hutchins, 1956 OK 192, 298 P.2d 777, 782; Hudson v. Blanchard, 1956 OK 8, 294 P.2d 554, 563; Taylor v. Davis, 1947 OK 301, 199 Okl. 260, 185 P.2d 444, 445.

. Regier, supra note 7; Hudson, supra note 7; Taylor, supra note 7; 1 Wicmore, Evipence § 20a (Tillers rev.1983); 1 McCormick on Evipznce § 51, at 215-17 (John W. Strong et al., 5th ed.1999).

. Myers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 2002 OK 60, ¶36, n. 66, 52 P.3d 1014, 1033 n. 66; Braden v. Hendricks, 1985 OK 14, 695 P.2d 1343, 1348-49; Teegarden v. State, 1977 OK CR 162, ¶¶8-9, 563 P.2d 660, 662 (though the motion in limine was properly made and argued before trial, the mov-ant failed to preserve error for appellate review because he did not once again object to the testimony elicited at trial). A motion in limine is generally a pretrial device used to preclude prejudicial statements and questions which have no proper bearing on the issues in the case and which, if heard by the jury, would interfere with a fair and impartial trial. Braden, supra at 1348-49; Teegarden, supra at 662.

. A party who is aggrieved by a trial court's in limine ruling that suppresses proof sought to be introduced must, during the trial proceeding, elicit the desired proof through a witness from whom the facts may be adduced and, when the objection to the question is made and sustained, that party must-out of the hearing of the jury-make a proffer. The proffer consists of outlining *143for the record the nature of the evidence that would have been given by the witness had she/he been allowed to answer the question to which the objection was sustained. It is in this manner that the trial court is afforded an opportunity to make its in-trial ruling upon the issue in contention. The last link in the chain to be followed in the preservation-of-error process is a transcript of the trial court proceedings incorporated into the record for appeal. These are the sine qua non requirements for preserving for review an exclusionary ruling. In short, an appellate court will not review error in excluding evidence unless the record for appeal reflects all necessary steps were taken for the quest of corrective relief. The trial court considered the plaintiff/invitee's request for an inquiry-outside the presence of the jury-on the admissibility of third-party negligence. The plaintiff moved to exclude any testimony (or argument by counsel) showing that a third party supplied a defective floor mat to the defendant's store. The motion was resisted on the ground that if the mat was defective, the testimony would show a third party failed to provide a quality mat and that the defendant lacked knowledge of the dangerous condition. No proffer followed when the court sustained the in-trial request for excluding proof of a third party's negligence. None of the steps the defendant's lawyer took qualifies here as a substitute for, or functional equivalent of, a required evi-dentiary proffer.
The burden stood imposed on the defendant land possessor to proffer the excluded evidence in the course of trial. After the trial court's initial ruling that excluded the tendered evidence, the defendant's duty was to make a proffer. There is here no record trail of either the plaintiff's formal objection to an attempted admission or of a proffer by the defendant of evidence deemed excludable.

. See, eg., Boyles, supra note 2.

. See, eg., Porter, supra note 5.

. 12 0.$.2001§ 832.

. Bishop's, supra note 1 at 563.

. Even if a proffer had been made and the evidence barred by a ruling reviewable on appeal, there would have been here no error. The nondelegable nature of the defendant/land possessor's duty vis-a-vis the plaintiffinvitee removes from the case the presence of an appor-tionable tort liability.

. When a judge's mid-trial error is given to support his/her new-trial grant and the appellate court decides there was no error, the new-trial order must be reversed. Bishop's, supra note 1 at 563; Thomas v. Holliday, 1988 OK 116, ¶11, 764 P.2d 165, 171 n. 23; Dodson v. Henderson Properties, Inc., 1985 OK 71, ¶5, 708 P.2d 1064, 1065-1066. Conversely, when the record discloses a tenable legal ground for the trial court's action, its order granting a new trial must be affirmed. Barnhart v. International Harvester Company, 1968 OK 49, 441 P.2d 1000, 1004-1005; Chapman v. Tiger, 1960 OK 181, 356 P.2d 571, 580.