Legal analysis from Dean's Law Dictionary will be displayed here.

This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Murphy (P) was at the Bonnano house when Brian Murphy (D), her estranged husband burst into the house with a shotgun and threw P onto a marble table and pumped the gun and screamed at P calling her a whore and a prostitute and accusing her of extramarital affairs. Brian then entered Bonnano's (P1) bedroom and accused P1 of running a whore house. D then walked P out of the house at gunpoint and eventually she persuaded D to leave. P returned to the house and called the police. During trial, D relayed a different version that included two other men. D claimed that P was just as upset as her but had injured herself and that the alleged shotgun that was pointed at the women was always in his truck. D was charged and convicted of unlawful assault and entry. Those convictions were affirmed on appeal. In the present civil suit, each P was awarded $45,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. D appealed. P and D settled and this appeal was continued for P1, and D; D contended that the trial judge erred with he did not allow several prior incidents of asserted conduct on P to be cross-examined as these reflected poorly on P's veracity as a witness. (The bad acts of P are listed on pages 603-4 of Mueller 4th). The trial judge ruled that the prior bad acts were not relevant to the current litigation and that the acts only showed that P was litigious.

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