Court Opinion

ID: 9587530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:23:19.420109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:17.979408
License: Public Domain

*270PETERSON, C. J.,
concurring.
I concur in the court’s decision and in its analysis of the merits of Taxpayer’s claims. I write to express my concern about the paradoxical situation that can confront a trial court, who, as factfinder, having ruled piecemeal on admissibility as facially relevant evidence is presented, is left to review an undifferentiated mass of evidence in the record.
Here, for example, Taxpayer claimed that checks totalling $13,992.74 represented his payroll expense deduction. 310 Or at 263, n 4. That could be clear enough, but the important supporting documentation, in the form of Form 1099s, time sheets and ledgers, was not marshalled by Taxpayer in any coherent form for the Tax Court (or this court, for that matter) to review.
I agree with the opinion of this court that once having admitted the evidence, the Tax Court was constrained to consider it. But I would pause to underscore the notion suggested by footnote 9 of the opinion that the Tax Court could have required Taxpayer to put the evidence into some minimally coherent form before it was admitted.
In order to rule on admissibility of relevant evidence under OEC 403, the court must be able to determine if the evidence may result in “confusion of the issues,” or in “undue delay” either in the presentation or the refutation, or in presentation of needlessly cumulative evidence. Moreover, in order to assign error to a ruling excluding evidence, ordinarily a party must make an offer of proof making known “the substance of the evidence” excluded. OEC 103(1)(b); State v. Affeld, 307 Or 125, 128, 764 P2d 220 (1988). At the appellate level, in addition to the offer of proof requirement in cases challenging the exclusion of evidence, the court requires a brief to include:
A concise summary, without argument, of all the facts of the case material to determination of the appeal. The summary shall be in narrative form with references to the places in the transcript, narrative statement, audio record, record or abstract where such facts appear. (ORAP 5.40(8).)
De novo review is not Latin for “let the court figure it out.” The standard of review does not absolve the parties from presenting their case in a comprehensible form. Faced with a *271situation such as this case, the trial courts should not hesitate to require a party to present facially relevant evidence in a form that will prevent confusion, delay, or the introduction of needlessly cumulative evidence for the court to review. Appellate courts, for their part, should not hesitate to require stricter compliance with ORAP 5.40(8) when the situation demands it.