Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850661.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850661.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/850661.pdf ↗

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“shall be deemed admissible unless objection is made under [ER 904(c)],” the plain

language of ER 904(c)(2) allows the receiving party to wait until trial to raise a

relevancy objection. See Hendrickson, 101 Wn. App. at 268 (noting that “ER 904

reserves relevance objections for trial”). Therefore, Sgt. Hockett did not need to

object to SPD’s ER 904 notice within 14 days for the trial court to exclude the

evidence on relevancy grounds.

SPD argues the trial court erred by sustaining an objection for lack of

foundation when SPD attempted to question Sgt. Hockett’s treating physician, Dr.

Parker, about whether Sgt. Hockett’s service-related exposures could have

caused his RAD. Because SPD did not show that Dr. Parker had sufficient

personal knowledge to testify about Sgt. Hockett’s military-related exposures, we

do not find an abuse of discretion.

8 SPD argues that Sgt. Hockett opened the door to being questioned about his service-related
exposures based on his and others’ testimony that he served in the military and did not experience
chronic fatigue until he began working at SPD. This argument is unconvincing because even if a
party opens the door, the evidence sought to be admitted must still be admissible under ER 402
and ER 403. Taylor v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., 187 Wn.2d 743, 766, 389 P.3d 517 (2017). Assuming
Sgt. Hockett did open the door, this evidence would still be irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial,
confusing, or misleading.

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For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
No. 85066-1-I

We typically construe objections for lack of foundation as objections under

ER 602, which provides that “[a] witness may not testify to a matter unless