Court Opinion

ID: 9537698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:21:38.814498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:54.345002
License: Public Domain

*557ROSSMAN, P. J.,
dissenting.
Plaintiff sought to establish that defendant breached an agreement to pay him a fee for testifying at defendant’s client’s malpractice trial. As direct evidence of defendant’s obligation to pay him, plaintiff elicited testimony from defendant as to whether he had received money from Malcolm, the client, for the purpose of paying plaintiffs fee. Defendant denied having received the money. Plaintiff then called Malcolm as a witness and elicited testimony that Malcolm had given defendant money for the purpose of paying plaintiffs witness fee.
That is what I would call relevant testimony — really relevant testimony. Not only does it bear on defendant’s credibility (by impeaching defendant’s earlier testimony denying that he had received money from Malcolm for the purpose of paying plaintiff) as the trial court concluded, but it also showed the existence of an agreement to pay plaintiff a fee (the entitlement of which is the gut issue of this case). It is beyond me to see how the majority can possibly conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting such testimony.
Aside from the parties’ own testimony, there is little better direct evidence of what the parties intended with respect to the payment of plaintiffs fee than that offered by plaintiff through Malcolm. Although on appeal plaintiff does not argue that Malcolm’s testimony was relevant for the purpose of establishing the existence of the contract to pay plaintiff, it certainly was, and that alone provides an adequate basis for affirming the trial court.
The majority goes on to say that the testimony was “clearly prejudicial” to defendant. Perhaps so; sometimes the truth hurts. Suffice it to say that this evidentiary issue was fully discussed by both counsel and the trial court. The judge went through the prescribed drill. After weighing the value of allowing the evidence against the claim of prejudice to the defendant, the trial court allowed the evidence to be introduced. The trial court did nothing wrong.
I dissent from the majority’s hair splitting characterization of the evidence as collateral and would affirm the judgment, including the sanction under ORS 20.015.