Issue

Closing argument—request to read excerpts from appellate opinions to jury—properly denied

Summary

In plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment action to determine whether keeping chickens on their property violated their homeowner’s association's restrictive covenants, the trial court correctly denied plaintiffs' counsel's request to read excerpts from two Court of Appeals decisions (addressing restrictive covenants as they applied to animals) to the jury during closing arguments where the passages counsel sought to read were largely composed of facts from the two earlier cases–which may not be used to imply that a jury should return a favorable verdict in the case at bar. Moreover, the jury was only deciding two factual issues–whether the chickens were household pets or were kept for commercial purposes–rendering any statements of law about interpreting restrictive covenants from the passages in the earlier cases irrelevant.

Summary from the North Carolina Reports digest (official subject index). Read the opinion →