Despite the fact that CCP 222.5(a) was amended in 2018 to provide that a trial court “shall” allow a party to make a brief statement of the case before commencement of voir dire, this decision holds that the trial judge may exercise discretion to control the content of the pre-voir dire statement, and that this judge acted within the bounds of his discretion in requiring the proposed statement to be presented to him in writing, and then in ruling that it was too argumentative to be given. As the prospective jurors were already in the courtroom the, the judge also did not abuse his discretion in denying plaintiff leave to redo the statement before voir dire started. Also, plaintiff failed to show he was prejudiced by the ruling denying him the right to present the pre-voir dire statement.