RELEVANCE

Question 1

DEFINITION

Answer 1

Evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a fat of consequence more or less probable than would be the case without the evidence

• Evidence must be material
• evidence must be relevant
• Ask: whether the fact sought to be proved is itself in issue under the pleadings and the substantive law and whether the evidence helps to prove the fact for which it was offered.
• evidence is competent if it does not violate an exclusionary rule

Question 2

MATERIALITY

Answer 2

exists when the proffered evidence relates to one of the substantive legal issues in the case

• what is the issue that the evidence is offered to prove
• is the legal issue material to the substantive cause of action or defense in the case
• evidence is immaterial if the proposition for which it is offered as proof is not a legal issue in the case

Question 3

RELEVANCE: PROBATIVENESS

Answer 3

• contributes to proving or disproving a material issue.

- does the evidence tend to prove the issue?

Question 4

DIRECT EVIDENCE

Answer 4

Relies on actual knowledge and goes to a material issue without intervention of an inferential process

Question 5

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Answer 5

Relies on inference. Evidence of a subsidiary or collateral fact from which, alone or in conjunction with a cluster of other facts, the existence of the material issue can be inferred.

Question 6

DETERMINING RELEVANCE

Answer 6

Must related back to time, event or person in controversy being litigated

• consider proximity in time to the current events: a circumstance would be relevant if it occurred in close time proximity to the event in question.
• a previous similar occurrence proves little or nothing about the one in issue and may cause confusion to the jury and unfair prejudice which outweighs the helpfulness