Ronald L. Obrey, Jr. v. Hansford T. Johnson, in His Capacity as the Acting Secretary of the Navy

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• recognizing that we find harmful error when “the error itself had substantial influence . . . or if one is left in grave doubt”
• concluding that, although the trial court had valid concerns with the risk of “mini-trials” stemming from some evidence, it “should have first addressed these concerns with the parties through other, less restrictive means”
• explaining an erroneous evidentiary ruling in a civil trial is harmless if it is more probable than not that the jury would have reached the same verdict without the error
• on harmless error review, in both civil and criminal cases, courts reverse even “in cases of equipoise” (cleaned up)
• harmless error occurs if “it is more probable than not that the jury would have reached the same verdict even if the evidence had been admitted”
• not harmless error where district court abused its discretion in excluding testimony

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).