{"id":577,"date":"2014-02-04T12:54:28","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T12:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/?p=577"},"modified":"2023-07-25T17:08:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T21:08:19","slug":"4-preliminary-ruling-motion-limine-generally-insufficient-preserve-issue-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/raise-or-waive-rule\/4-preliminary-ruling-motion-limine-generally-insufficient-preserve-issue-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"(4)   PRELIMINARY RULING ON MOTION IN LIMINE GENERALLY INSUFFICIENT TO PRESERVE ISSUE FOR APPEAL."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rhode Island Supreme Court strictly adheres to the raise or waive rule, pursuant to which \u201can issue that has not been raised or articulated previously at trial is not properly preserved for appellate review.\u201d\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courts.ri.gov\/Courts\/SupremeCourt\/Opinions\/08-51.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">State v. Moten, 2008-51-C.A.<\/a> at 9 (citing <i>State v. Gomez<\/i>, 848 A.2d 221, 237 (R.I. 2004)); <i>State v. Figuereo<\/i>, 31 A.3d 1283, 1289 (R.I. 2011)).\u00a0 Past editions of the Fast Five on Rhode Island Appellate Practice have addressed the raise or waive rule at length.\u00a0 <i>See<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/category\/raise-or-waive-rule\/\">https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/category\/raise-or-waive-rule\/<\/a> (cataloging prior posts on the raise or waive rule).<\/p>\n<p>Recently, the Supreme Court cautioned litigants that a preliminary ruling on a motion in limine generally is insufficient to preserve an issue for appellate review.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courts.ri.gov\/COURTS\/SUPREMECOURT\/OPINIONS\/12-297.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Martin v. Lawrence, No. 2012-297-Appeal<\/a>.\u00a0 In <i>Martin<\/i>, the defendant moved in limine to exclude a document from evidence.\u00a0 <i>Id<\/i>. at 7.\u00a0 After considering the defendant\u2019s motion, the trial justice stated that he was \u201crul[ing] preliminarily that the objection of the defendant is sustained on the grounds that the statement sought to be presented by the plaintiff . . . is hearsary [ ] that does not fall within any exception to the hearsay rule.\u201d\u00a0 <i>Id<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>In addressing whether the trial court\u2019s preliminary ruling was sufficient to preserve the issue for appellate review, the Supreme Court noted that \u201c\u2018a ruling on a motion <i>in limine<\/i>, unless unequivocally definitive, will not alone suffice to preserve an evidentiary issue for appellate review; a proper objection on the record at the trial itself is necessary.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 <i>Id<\/i>. at 7-8 (quoting <i>State v. Andujar<\/i>, 899 A.2d 1209, 1222 (R.I. 2006)).\u00a0 Nevertheless, the Supreme Court concluded that under the circumstances, where the trial justice\u2019s decision on the motion in limine was made on the same day that trial was to commence, plaintiff may have been reluctant to attempt to introduce the evidence.\u00a0 <i>Id<\/i>. at 8.\u00a0 Thus, the Supreme Court proceeded to address the appropriateness of the trial justice\u2019s ruling.\u00a0 <i>Id<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rhode Island Supreme Court strictly adheres to the raise or waive rule, pursuant to which \u201can issue that has not been raised or articulated previously at trial is not properly preserved for appellate review.\u201d\u00a0 State v. Moten, 2008-51-C.A. at 9 (citing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[18,74,52,14],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raise-or-waive-rule","tag-appellate-practice","tag-evidence","tag-raise-or-waive-rule","tag-rhode-island-supreme-court"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}