Opinion ID: 880014
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the testimony of the highway patrolman

Text: Far in advance of the trial, the highway patrolman was interviewed and deposed by counsel for Smith. The patrolman was also interviewed by defendant's counsel and the patrolman accompanied counsel for the defendant to the scene of the occurrence prior to the trial. The patrolman was named as a witness by both parties but he was not named as an expert witness by Rorvik's counsel in response to Smith's interrogatories. Smith contends it was reversible error for the trial court to permit the patrolman to testify as an expert in that situation. The patrolman testified that he was notified of the accident at 7:00 p.m. on that date and reached the scene about 20 minutes later. As he came to the accident scene, he passed an ambulance which was already transporting Smith to the hospital in St. Ignatius. He observed the loader in the eastbound half of the highway with all four wheels on the pavement. He measured the loader and determined the distance that it projected into the roadway. The patrolman interviewed Marlene Rorvik at the scene. She told him she had begun to proceed around the loader on the road when a person jumped from the loader and was struck by her car. The patrolman talked to other witnesses at the scene. Randy Monroe said he had not seen the accident since he had his back turned. Monroe was in a field looking for a container for water. The patrolman also talked to Lynn Birthmark and Steve Weingart, the driver and passenger in a vehicle following Marlene Rorvik, who told him that they had been traveling at approximately 35 miles per hour. They did not tell him anything about her speed, the point of impact, or the point of the highway where Smith landed after the collision. The patrolman noted on his investigation report that the speed limit at the time of the accident would have been 55 miles per hour. (The actual speed limit is disputed; it was probably 35 miles per hour, though no witness, including the highway patrolman, saw any signs respecting that speed limit. A county road supervisor testified that to his knowledge such 35 miles per hour signs were posted on the date of the accident.) In direct examination, the patrolman stated that he had been a highway patrolman for 16 years and that he investigated approximately 1600 accidents in that time. He had attended approximately 80 hours of classroom training on accident investigation. He had testified as an opinion witness about the cause of accidents in other cases. The patrolman testified that on arriving at the accident scene, he observed the position of the loader parked on the highway, measured its bucket which extended 7 feet 6 inches into the highway surface, measured the total width of the highway, and talked to Marlene Rorvik and witnesses Lynn Birthmark and Steve Weingard as well as Randy Monroe. He did not ever talk to the plaintiff Dwight Smith. He determined that there were no flares or other warning devices set out behind or in front of the Smith vehicle. He determined what Smith had done prior to the impact by the statements he received from Marlene Rorvik. Before the patrolman arrived, Randy Monroe had moved the truck from its position behind the loader. The patrolman did not learn of the presence of the truck behind the loader until days later. On cross-examination, the patrolman admitted that he assumed the speed limit was 55 miles per hour because no speed limit sign was posted; it was his opinion that Smith did not properly display flags and flares at the scene, and that he had failed to yield the right of way to a vehicle as a pedestrian; and he did not know when he formed his opinion that a truck had been parked behind the front end loader so that Rorvik had to pass the truck before she could pass the loader. It also developed on cross-examination that the patrolman had thought, from the position of the shovel on the loader, that it was going in the other direction and was parked on the wrong side of the road. There were no skidmarks and the patrolman did not determine the stopping distance of the Rorvik vehicle from the point of impact with the pedestrian to the place where the vehicle had stopped; he did not determine nor measure the distance that Smith had been thrown by the impact from the vehicle from the point of impact to the place where he came to rest; his discussions with Randy Monroe and Lynn Birthmark were brief, and he stated that they did not volunteer any information to him. He testified that the damage to the Rorvik vehicle was as portrayed in Exhibit C, a photograph which shows scuff marks of some sort on the bumper below and to the right of the left headlight and some scuff marks on the front part of the bonnet or hood of the Rorvik vehicle. In his direct examination, the patrolman testified as follows: Q. Now, Officer, based upon your investigation of the accident, why didn't you cite Ms. Rorvik for speeding? A. I had no evidence to support the fact that she was speeding. Q. Why didn't you cite her for careless driving? A. I had no evidence to prove she was driving carelessly. Q. Why didn't you cite her for driving in an unsafe and imprudent manner? A. I felt she was driving safe at the time. Q. Why didn't you cite her for failure to reduce her speed in the face of a potentially hazardous situation? A. I feel she did. Q. Why didn't you cite her for failing to pass safely? A. I feel she was passing safely. Q. Why didn't you cite her for failing to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian? A. I feel that she did. Q. Why didn't you cite her for being negligent or for violation of a basic rule? A. She was not negligent and she violated no basic rule. MR. RYAN: Your Honor, excuse me, I'm going to move to strike the witness' answer  the witness' answer he volunteered about negligence  on the grounds it's a legal conclusion, speculative and should not have been given that way. THE COURT: Overruled, the answer will stand. Those questions and the answers given constitute prejudicial error against the plaintiff Smith. The trial court should have sustained the objection to the reference about negligence. The questions were objectionable, even though the patrolman was testifying as an expert. The questions were objectionable at least on the following grounds: 1) they were irrelevant; 2) they were argumentative in form; 3) they described as crimes things which are not crimes; 4) they called not for objective evidence but for the mental conclusions of the witness; and, 5) they were hearsay. Though of first impression in this state (but see O'Brien, infra), it is clear in the law that admitting testimony of an officer that he made no arrest following a collision is error. Danner v. Walters (1951), 154 Neb. 506, 48 N.W.2d 635. Admitting such testimony is prejudicial error. Allen v. Ellis (1963), 191 Kan. 311, 380 P.2d 408. In Ferreira v. General Motors Corporation (1983), 4 Hawaii App. 12, 657 P.2d 1066, 1069, it is stated: If evidence of an acquittal is inadmissible, a fortiori, evidence of the issuance or nonissuance of a traffic citation is likewise inadmissible. In Underwood v. Butler (1983), 166 Ga. App. 527, 304 S.E.2d 729, Judge Birdsong noted: ... That the officer did not issue appellant a criminal citation is no more relevant and admissible in a civil trial than it would be if the citation had been issued and the appellant found not guilty. The elements of proof in civil and criminal trials are decidedly different. (Citing a case.) Evidence that the officer did not issue a criminal citation to the appellant is generally irrelevant to the question of negligence in a civil trial. This rule is not changed by the fact that the officer had earlier, without objection by the appellant, been permitted to express his opinion as to her negligence. 304 S.E.2d at 731. In this case, the plaintiff had moved in limine for an order preventing the patrolman from testifying as an expert since he was not listed by the defendant as an expert in pretrial discovery. The District Court denied this motion. The motion, however, was not denied until the afternoon of the first day of trial after the jury had been selected on March 30, 1987. Smith's counsel had taken the deposition of the patrolman on November 8, 1985. At that time, the patrolman testified that he did not consider himself an accident reconstruction expert, and that the opinions he was rendering in the deposition were from a criminal standpoint and not from a civil standpoint. Upon proper requests by Smith through interrogatories that Rorvik identify any expert witnesses, it became the duty of Rorvik to identify those witnesses, including the highway patrolman before trial. Sanders v. Mt. Haggin Livestock Company (1972), 160 Mont. 73, 500 P.2d 397; Smith v. Babcock (1971), 157 Mont. 81, 482 P.2d 1014. (A proper disclosure by Rorvik of the intention to call the patrolman as an expert on civil liability would have warned Smith and led to probable further motions to the court respecting the foundation for the patrolman's testimony as an expert.) In this case, the patrolman had spoken only to Rorvik, and at trial announced that he had based his opinion on what Rorvik had told him, plus what he had learned from other witnesses at the time of his investigation. However, no other eye witness at the scene could identify how the collision occurred. The only two witnesses to the actual circumstances of the collision were Rorvik on the one hand and Smith on the other. If the information obtained by the patrolman through his investigation were insufficient for him to form an opinion as an expert, the lack of foundation to qualify him for his opinion would be an issue for determination. See Tacke v. Vermeer Mfg. (Mont. 1986), 713 P.2d 527, 43 St.Rep. 123. We have held that where the patrolman had inadequate information to form an opinion as to speed, that he should not be asked to testify thereon, O'Brien v. Great Northern Railway (1965), 145 Mont. 13, 400 P.2d 634: On direct and cross-examination the witness admitted that he was not an eye witness to the accident, having arrived some five minutes thereafter; that due to the impact, there was no way to determine the speed of the vehicle from the skidmarks on the highway; and, that he was not familiar with stopping distances in terms of speed. Shortly thereafter, in response to a question of whether there was any evidence of violation of the speed limit by the decedent, he replied, over appellant's objection, I don't know whether I could judge and give a conclusive answer to that or not. In my own mind, I don't think the man was exceeding the speed limit. We think that the witness' answer was predicated on pure speculation and conjecture; the appellant's objection that the question was without proper foundation and called for a conclusion was valid and should have been sustained. In view of the fact that the witness was a highway patrolman testifying as an expert witness, the testimony given by him might have been accorded considerable weight by the jury, and, inasmuch as it tended to establish the freedom of the decedent from contributory negligence, it was unduly prejudicial to the appellant's case and therefore reversible error to admit it. 145 Mont. at 19-20, 400 P.2d at 638.