The Texas Supreme Court has reversed the San Antonio Court of Appeals and remanded for new trial an heirship dispute turning on whether the deceased father had a common-law wife.
In re the Estate of Guadalupe Lopez, Sr., Deceased (No. 24-0315) arose from a dispute over the appointment of an independent administrator for the deceased’s estate. The deceased son applied for independent administration and an heirship determination, which the county court granted and rendered judgment declaring the son and his two siblings heirs of the state. Elvira Gonzalez later filed a petition for bill of review alleging that she was the decedent’s common-law wife and seeking judgment declaring her an heir as well. The question turned on whether the decedent and Gonzalez were informally married. Gonzalez offered the testimony of Alicia York, a former district court judge. Over the son’s objections, the trial court admitted York’s videotaped deposition testimony opining that Gonzalez established the elements of common-law marriage. The trial court subsequently granted the bill of review and awarded Gonzalez a share of the decedent’s estate. The son appealed.
Without deciding whether the trial court erred in admitting York’s testimony, the court of appeals concluded that any error was harmless because (1) the testimony was cumulative, (2) none of York’s opinions “articulated improper legal standards,” (3) Gonzalez did not emphasize York’s testimony, and (4) the other evidence supporting her claim “withstood the [son’s] sufficiency challenge.” SCOTX granted review.
In a per curiam opinion without oral argument, the Court reversed and remanded. The problem, the court stated, was that the trial court failed to perform its gatekeeper function respecting the testimony of qualified experts. While TRE 702 permits experts with specialized knowledge to “help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact issue,” but only if “the expert’s knowledge and experience on a relevant issue are beyond that of the average juror” (citation omitted). If the jury “is equally competent to form an opinion about the ultimate fact issues or the expert’s testimony is within the common knowledge of the jury,” the trial court should exclude it (citations omitted). Failure to do so constitutes error.
The Court then addressed whether the trial court’s error probably caused rendition of an improper judgment. That determination requires the Court to “evaluate the entire case from voir dire to closing argument, considering the evidence, strengths and weaknesses of the case, and the verdict” (citation omitted). The Court will also look to the role the evidence played in the trial and whether counsel emphasized erroneous evidence. An error is “likely harmless if the admitted evidence was cumulative” or “if the rest of the evidence was so one-sided that the error likely made no difference.” But if the evidence “was crucial to a key issue,” the error is likely harmful. (citations omitted).
Here, the Court ruled, the trial court erred in admitting York’s testimony on the basis that the issue—whether the evidence established a common-law marriage—was within the average juror’s knowledge. There is nothing “specialized” about the elements of common-law marriage and nothing technical or complicated about the evidence necessary to establish it. Additionally, York testified “at length” about the Family Code and how a jury should go about applying the law, as if she were presiding over the trial herself. She thus usurped the trial court’s exclusive role to instruct the jury in the law. Her testimony thus boiled down to “an official endorsement” in favor of Gonzalez.
The trial court’ error was harmful as well. It directly concerned the only contested issue in the litigation, “on which the evidence cut both ways.” While there certainly was evidence from which the jury could conclude the existence of a common-law marriage, there was plenty of contrary evidence, too. Had York not acted the part of the judge in her testimony, it was “far from clear whether the jury would have found an agreement absent [the] testimony as to how she would have weighed the competing evidence in her capacity as a judge.” It didn’t help that the “expert” obviously sided with Gonzalez and that she “spun” the evidence to influence the jury. The case was too close to call otherwise, so York’s testimony could well have been decisive. Regardless of whether Gonzalez’s counsel emphasized it (which the court indicated that counsel really did do that), “[w]e have previously rejected arguments that prejudicial evidence was harmless merely because it was mentioned only once, observing ‘[i]f that were the only rule, there would be little use for the rules of evidence as everyone could ignore them with impunity.’” SCOTX granted the petition, reversed the court of appeals’ judgment, and remanded the case for new trial.
