(Family law and real estate law omitted – long lunch/battery recharging issues).
Prof. Karlson spoke on the subject of evidence.
Preserving error. Pretrial motion to suppress doesn’t preserve error. You have to object at trial. An objection is timely if you object before the answer is given — you don’t necessarily have to object before a witness testifies at all. There might be an argument that you don’t have to file the pretrial motion to suppress in order to preserve error.
In drug offenses involving weight of the substance, apparently the State has to show that it tested the scale before and after the substance involved was weighed. However, where the defendant failed to object to a lack of such evidence, there was no error for appeal.
State rape shield law rule of evidence (barring evidence of sexual behavior in certain proceedings) doesn’t apply in civil matters.
To be admissible, evidence of necessity and reasonableness is not precursor for admissibility of medical bills. These are necessary for a jury to conclude the bills support damages. (There is another rule for medical bills saying that a medical billing statement is prima facie evidence of reasonableness — this sucks for auto insurers because it makes it tough to point out that often times medical bills are akin to sticker prices for new cars — nobody pays those prices. Plaintiffs can throw down copies of bills that are 200% of what their health insurer actually paid and get a verdict based on those inaccurate charges. Then, after recovery, the Plaintiff will turn around and pay the health insurer back for the actual expense and pocket the difference. Nevertheless, this bit of legal fiction will probably stand up unless one is willing and able to drag enough hospital administrators into court to testify what services actually cost. Good luck with that.)
Blanket claims of privilege (work-product, attorney-client) are disfavored. You should make a privilege log articulating the basis of the claimed privilege for each particular document. Kind of a hassle for the practitioner, but I suppose one can find the silver lining in their billable hours.
If a document protected by the work product privilege is used to refresh a witnesses memory while the witness is on the stand (maybe even before that), the privilege is waived. Deposition question and requests for production – all documents used to refresh the memory of the witness.
In attempting to preserve an objection, make your objection as specific as possible – if evidence is admissible in part and inadmissible in part and you object to the entire piece of evidence, you could find that you’ve waived the error.
Counsel is not required to disqualify him or herself as a witness to a case where there are any other witnesses available, even if counsel is the best witness. (As the next speaker noted – if the lawyer is your only witness, you probably want to think about settling.)
Prof. Karlson announced that this would be his last time lecturing at this conference — he has, I believe, lectured at the annual update since its inception.
Leave a Reply