Court Opinion

ID: 9617214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:53:19.462259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:07.068624
License: Public Domain

JACKSON, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the transfer of the mobile home park was supported by adequate consideration and that the mobile home park was properly classified as marital property. For the reasons stated below, however, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s analysis of defendant’s second assignment of error, in which defendant argued that the trial court erred in excluding portions of defendant’s father’s testimony, although I agree that the assignment of error should be overruled.
On direct examination, defense counsel attempted to elicit information from defendant’s father regarding a “well dispute or well problem” as a possible motive for the transfer of the property. When defendant’s father began to explain what “[t]he water quality people . . . said,” however, plaintiff’s counsel objected to the line of questioning, and the trial court sustained the objection. Viewing this incident in isolation, the majority is correct that without an offer of proof, this Court is unable to determine “the essential content or substance of the witness’s testimony,” Currence v. Hardin, 296 N.C. 95, 100, 249 S.E.2d 387, 390 (1978), and thus, we have no way to determine whether or not the trial court erred in excluding defendant’s testimony.
As defendant correctly points out, however, defendant’s father’s later testimony on cross-examination revealed his rationale for dividing the property based on the water systems supplying the property.
Plaintiff’s Counsel: So, it was not actually your inheritance? He didn’t inherit this park?
*655Defendant’s Father: What I intended is that that particular piece of property we cut apart and divided [sic] one water system away from another water system and I gave him the water system that is next to one of the apartments so that that could be one piece of property when and if it were divided if we wanted to divide it that way. That’s what I was saying. I planned for him to have that piece of property that was adjacent to one of the apartments.
Based on this later testimony, I believe that “the significance of the [excluded testimony] is obvious from the record.” State v. Simpson, 314 N.C. 359, 370, 334 S.E.2d 53, 60 (1985). Accordingly, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the issue has not been preserved for appellate review.
Although I believe the issue has been preserved for our review, I do not believe defendant has demonstrated prejudicial error from the exclusion of the testimony. Defendant contends that “the trial judge .prevented the donor, Robert P. Joyce, Jr. from fully explaining his reason for deeding the property to his son when he did.” However, the trial court was justified in sustaining the objection to defendant’s father testifying to what “[t]he water quality people . . . said” as that constituted inadmissible hearsay not subject to any of the exceptions or exemptions provided in the Rules of Evidence. Furthermore, through the passage quoted above, defendant’s father fully explained the timing and justification for his deeding the property to defendant. Defendant’s father offered his explanation, defense counsel did not follow up with any additional questions, and the essential content of the excluded testimony was allowed into evidence. Defendant is correct in arguing that “[t]he evidence most relevant in determining donative intent [or the lack of donative intent] is the donor’s own testimony,” Burnett v. Burnett, 122 N.C. App. 712, 715, 471 S.E.2d 649, 651 (1996) (second alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted), but in the case sub judice, the donor was permitted to testify as to his intent in the transfer.
Accordingly, defendant has not shown prejudicial error, and his assignment of error, although properly preserved for appellate review, should be overruled.