Preservation Best Practices: Successful Running Objections

Reader John Bickel suggests that a running objection, when properly used, can be a very useful preservation tool. A running objection can keep appellate strategy from interfering with trial strategy. You can preserve the error without looking like a jack-in-the-box popping out of your chair to object after every question.

There are four steps to a successful running objection:

1. Get an adverse ruling from the court. This may seem obvious, but no error is preserved without an adverse ruling.
2. Get an express ruling from the court granting a running objection. Again, this may seem obvious, but many litigants have gotten themselves in trouble by having to argue that they had an implied running objection. E.g., Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas, LLC v. Star-L Land Co., No. 09-10-00475-CV, 2012 WL 585105 at *4 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 2012, no pet.). Don't risk it; get an express ruling.
3. Be specific. As John points out, a successful running objection will precisely identify both the objectionable evidence and every basis of the objection.
4. Renew the objection with each new witness that may present the objectionable evidence. Failure to expressly renew the objection will waive error. E.g., City of Fort Worth v. Holland, 748 S.W.2d 112, 113 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1988, writ denied).

Be sure that running objections are part of your preservation toolkit, and follow these steps to ensure that they successfully preserve error.

[This is part of a series of occasional posts in which I will highlight suggested best practices for preserving error. If you have any practices that you use and would like to share with others, please let me know, and I will be happy to pass them along (with appropriate attribution, of course).]

-- Rich Phillips, Thompson & Knight