Title: Reed v. Hutchinson
Citation: 331 Pa. Super. 404, 480 A.2d 1096
Docket Number: N/A
State: Pennsylvania
Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Date: July 6, 1984

331 Pa. Superior Ct. 404 (1984) 480 A.2d 1096 Frederick REED and Roxanne M. Reed, Appellants v. Ruth Ann HUTCHINSON. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Argued February 21, 1984. Filed July 6, 1984. Reargument Denied September 11, 1984. *405 Edward Blumstein, Philadelphia, for appellants. C. Richard Morton, West Chester, for appellee. Before WICKERSHAM, MONTGOMERY and MONTEMURO. MONTEMURO, Judge: Appellants, Frederick Reed and his wife, Roxanne Reed, commenced this action in trespass to recover for injuries sustained in an accident which occurred on September 16, 1976, when a pick-up truck driven by appellee Hutchinson left the road and hit a guardrail. Appellant, Roxanne Reed, *406 was a passenger in the truck at the time of the accident. At the completion of trial on November 17, 1980. The jury rendered its verdict in favor of defendant-appellee Hutchinson. Appellants' motions for a new trial and for judgment n.o.v. were denied by the court below. Judgment was entered on July 23, 1982 and this appeal followed. At approximately 2:20 PM, on the afternoon of September 16, 1976, appellee was driving down Paoli Pike toward West Chester, when, near the Pike's intersection with Route 352, her pick-up truck veered off the road and hit a guardrail. After the accident, the right front wheel of appellee's vehicle was discovered on the right side of the road some twenty-five feet to the rear of the vehicle. At trial, plaintiff-appellants attempted to prove that appellee driver lost control of her vehicle due to inattentiveness and drove off the road into a guardrail, which thus caused the vehicle to lose its right front wheel. Appellee's position was that the vehicle lost its right front wheel for unexplained reasons, which loss then caused the vehicle to leave the road and hit the guardrail. On appeal, appellants raise four issues, three of which relate to the testimony of the investigating officer, Trooper Williams, and can essentially be stated as one question did the trial court err in permitting opinion testimony by Trooper Williams? Trooper Williams was not an eyewitness to the accident, but instead arrived on the scene two to three minutes later. At trial, Trooper Williams was called as a witness on behalf of appellants. It was established, inter alia, on direct examination that the officer had observed cut marks on the road at the scene of the accident. The following exchange then occurred on cross-examination: (N.T. November 13, 1980, pp. 87-90). Cross-examination was then permitted to continue, and eventually appellee's attorney posited the following: (N.T. November 13, 1980, at 97-98). We begin our analysis by stating the general rule that in this Commonwealth an investigating police officer who did not actually witness a motor vehicle accident is not competent to render an opinion at trial as to its cause. Brodie v. Philadelphia Transportation Co., 415 Pa. 296, 203 A.2d 657 (1964); Smith v. Clark, 411 Pa. 142, 190 A.2d 441 (1963); Johnson v. Peoples Cab Co., 386 Pa. 513, 126 A.2d 720 (1956); Lesher v. Henning, 302 Pa. Super. 508, 449 *410 A.2d 32 (1982); Kelly v. Buckley, 280 Pa. Super. 353, 421 A.2d 759 (1980); Andrews v. Jackson, 211 Pa. Super. 166, 235 A.2d 452 (1967). The rationale advanced for the rule is that since the officer has no first hand knowledge of the accident, his conclusion as to its cause is speculative at best, and thus constitutes an unwarranted and prejudicial usurpation of the fact finding prerogative of the jury. Brodie v. Philadelphia Transportation Co., supra; Smith v. Clark, supra, Lesher v. Henning, supra. However, there is a caveat to this general rule. When a police officer is properly qualified as an expert witness, and a proper foundation for his testimony is established, an officer may, like any other witness, render an opinion on the question of causation. Lesher v. Henning, supra 302 Pa. Super. at 512-513 n. 2, 449 A.2d at 43 n. 2. "If a witness has any reasonable pretension to specialized knowledge on the subject under investigation he or she is qualified as an expert." Kravinsky v. Glover, 263 Pa. Super. 8, 396 A.2d 1349 (1979). Additionally, we acknowledge that the question of qualifications of an expert witness is one for the discretion of the trial court. Commonwealth v. Williams, 270 Pa. Super. 27, 410 A.2d 880 (1979). Looking once again at the voir dire examination of the trooper, what we have is an individual who had been a state police officer for 1 1/2 years at the time of the accident, who had undergone the basic training in accident investigation which is given at the State Police Academy. When questioned as to what was covered in the course, the trooper replied: (N.T. November 13, 1980 at 90) (Emphasis added). We fail to see how this constitutes a pretension of specialized knowledge. To the contrary, the trooper highlighted his lack of expertise regarding the specific question at issue. If what we have here were sufficient to qualify an officer as an expert, as appellee asserts, one would expect to find numerous instances of opinion testimony by police officers in the case law. This is distinctly not so. While officers are permitted with some frequency to testify as to their opinion of the speed of a vehicle, based on their interpretation of skid marks found at the scene of an accident, e.g., Rutovitsky v. Magliocco, 394 Pa. 387, 147 A.2d 153 (1959); Morris v. Moss, 290 Pa. Super. 587, 435 A.2d 184 (1981); Rosato v. Nationwide Insurance Co., 263 Pa. Super. 340, 397 A.2d 1238 (1979), appellee cites us to no other circumstance in which opinion testimony of a police officer has been admitted into evidence. Our own research has confirmed that this is a representative picture of the case law as a whole on the subject of opinion testimony of non-eyewitness police officers. Moreover, we note that appellants' position is substantially bolstered, and appellee's consequently undercut, by certain language in appellee's brief. Therein, appellee states, "We would also suggest that the opinion asked of the officer in this case as to when the wheel left the vehicle, could have easily been arrived at by the average teenage." (Brief of appellee, p. 12). If this is so, then the subject is not a proper one for expert testimony, and the issue is not one where opinion evidence, expert or otherwise, is admissible. 9 Standard Pa. Practice 2d §§ 55:1, 55:4. To admit the opinion of an expert in such circumstance is a patent usurpation of the jury's function. *412 Having determined that admission of the trooper's opinion testimony was error, we now must turn to the question of whether a new trial should be granted. While we recognize that every erroneous admission of evidence does not lead to a new trial, Fish v. Gosnell, 316 Pa.Super. 565, 463 A.2d 1042 (1983), we feel that a new trial should be granted here. We base this conclusion on the factually similar case of Lesher v. Henning, supra. Therein it was determined that opinion testimony of the investigating officer had been improperly admitted. The court rejected the proposition that the officer's opinion did not influence the jury's determination of liability. It specifically noted that the officer was the first witness to testify on behalf of appellee and thus the first to contradict the plaintiffs' story. Additionally, the court stated that: Lesher v. Henning, supra 302 Pa.Super. at 514, 449 A.2d at 35. Similar considerations apply in the case sub judice, where the trooper testified during plaintiff-appellants' presentation of their case. Appellants raise a fourth issue regarding an allegedly prejudicial statement by a juror. In view of our determination that a new trial is required, we need not address this issue. Judgment is vacated, and the case remanded to the Court of Common Pleas for a new trial. We do not retain jurisdiction.