Case Law Bonus Post: Thomas v Davis

Outline:

• The purpose of pleadings is to:
• Frame the issues for trial
• Permit the parties to frame their presentations accordingly
• It is inappropriate for a party:
• which has alleged or denied something in its complaint or answer
• to seek to prevent its adversary from presenting otherwise admissible evidence that relates to that thing
• by asserting that it is no longer interested in alleging or contesting that particular thing.
• Parties may choose which evidence they wish to present and which arguments they wish to emphasize at trial

Notes: This case eliminates teams’ ability to pull a particular trick, which works like this: often in Mock Trial there are several points that are disputed in the case. Let’s take an example from State v. Dawson, the 2011-2012 college case. The defendant was charged with DUI and murder; the prosecution had to prepare its case with an eye to proving both of those charges. Without this case law, the defense could have shown up and objected to relevance to all evidence that went to the DUI and not the murder, saying that they were willing to concede the DUI now, so disputing it was no longer relevant. That’s a bad legal trick but a very handy Mock Trial one, since it could cripple entire witnesses and require on-the-fly substantial reworking of closings. This case law forbids that tactic. The complaint and the answer, included in the case materials, set the standard for what is and isn’t relevant, not what the parties concede or contest at trial.