Opinion ID: 2130336
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b)

Text: Having examined the reasoning which supports the protection from hearsay provided by MRE 801(d)(2)(D), we turn now to consider whether a different, supervening rationale undergirds MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b) that would justify removal of this protection with respect to an out-of-court deposition statement made by a former employee. A superficial review of the history of subparagraph (b) might suggest that this Court deliberately elected to make deposition testimony of ex-employees admissible despite the hearsay rule. Closer examination, however, reveals a different story. Adopted in 1945, the original version of subparagraph (b) mirrored its federal counterpart and was compatible with limitations of the party-opponent admission provision of the Rules of Evidence. [22] However, the Michigan rule was significantly altered in 1963 when our court rules and statutes relating to the judiciary were the subject of a comprehensive revision. Differing thereafter in important respects from its federal counterpart, the Michigan version which emerged in 1963 was identical to the present MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b). Committee comment accompanying the 1963 revision observed that the language of the provision that is now MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b) had been modified so as to be consistent with [MCL 617.66] Mich Stats Ann 27.915 [replaced by MCL 600.2161; MSA 27A.2161] dealing with the right to call an adverse party as a witness at trial. The resulting change is that the deposition of any agent or employee of a party (rather than just managing agents) may be used for any purpose. Furthermore, the provision applies to agents or employees who were such at the time of the transaction out of which the action arose as well as agents or employees as of the time the deposition was taken. [2 Honigman & Hawkins, Michigan Court Rules Annotated (2d ed), Committee Notes, GCR 1963, 302.4(2), p 56.] Of course, this Court is not bound by the statements of those who served on a committee and proposed rule changes. Nevertheless, their comments can be helpful in understanding the purposes which underlie such a rule change. In this instance, the committee comment states that our departure from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was made to bring the provision into conformity with the adverse party statute. [23] The focus of that statute is not on the admissibility of testimony in general, but rather on the latitude allowed in questioning a presumptively adverse witness and the effect of an adverse witness' answers on the calling party's ability to introduce other evidence. A traditional common-law rule is that parties are bound by the testimony of the witnesses they call. 3A Wigmore, Evidence (Chadbourn rev), §§ 896-918. In accordance with that rule, it was widely held, prior to enactment of the adverse party statute in 1909, [24] that parties were not allowed to cross-examine or impeach the credibility of their own witnesses. The adverse party statute introduced an exception. Fleegar v Consumers Power Co, 262 Mich 537, 540-541; 247 NW 741 (1933). The purpose of this statute is to permit the calling as a witness of the opposite party or his agent or employee with the same privileges of cross-examination and contradiction as though such witness had been called by the opposite party. Kovich v Church & Church, Inc, 267 Mich 640, 644; 255 NW 421 (1934). While the effect of the adverse party statute is not inconsequential, its deviation from the common law of agency does not have the same force as would a similar departure in the context of party-opponent admissions. Thus it is not surprising that the adverse party statute was never held to abrogate the common-law predecessor to the party-opponent admission rule  the hearsay requirement that a statement by an employee of a party is admissible as the admission of a party-opponent only if the employee could be said to be speaking as an agent of the party when the statement was made. See, for example, Kalamazoo Yellow Cab Co v Kalamazoo Circuit Judge, 363 Mich 384; 109 NW2d 821 (1961), decided long after enactment in 1909 of the adverse party statute. In departing from the language of the federal rule to make what is now subparagraph (b) consistent with the adverse party statute, it thus appears that the drafters of the 1963 court rules, faced with an apparent conflict between the court rules and a statute, looked at the subrule as a means of applying the policy underlying the adverse party statute to depositions given by adverse witnesses, thus freeing parties from the shackles of the common-law rule concerning cross-examining one's own witness. [25] There is no evidence that, in making this change, they viewed the provision as a vehicle for overcoming the limitations of the traditional rule of evidence concerning admissions by party-opponents. Furthermore, this explanation has the attraction of harmonizing MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b), which focuses upon the depositions of adverse witnesses, with the adverse party statute, without bringing it into conflict with the Rules of Evidence. Our conclusion that the change in the court rule was not intended to override the traditional limitations of the party opponent admission rule is buttressed by Ruhala v Roby, 379 Mich 102; 150 NW2d 146 (1967), in which use by the plaintiff of a defendant's deposition as evidence at trial was contested because the defendant was present in court. The instant plaintiff contends that her case is supported by Ruhala because that Court admitted the deposition without a showing that the deponent was unavailable to testify at trial. Unlike the instant case, however, the deponent in Ruhala was a bona fide party-opponent, so the Ruhala Court was not presented with a hearsay problem. Consequently, the Court analyzed the problem in terms of the purposes of the adverse party statute rather than in terms of the independent operation of the hearsay rule. It described the subparagraph at issue [26] as paralleling cross-examination of an adverse party, in contrast to the succeeding subparagraph, [27] which the Court described as operating to make the deponent the witness of the party calling him. Id., p 113. Thus, the Court held that the deposition could be used as evidence without making the deponent the witness of the plaintiff. Id. Plaintiff's contention that Ruhala supports her interpretation of MCR 2.308(A)(1) is thus mistaken. [28] Plaintiff assumes, incorrectly, that the class of deponents referred to in subparagraph (b) is identical to the class of witnesses described in MRE 801(d)(2)(D). It is not. The deponents referred to in MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b) may properly be characterized as adverse witnesses, but they are not necessarily party-opponents. To be so characterized, they must also meet the criteria of MRE 801(d)(2)(D). Plaintiff's reliance on Chapman v Buder, 14 Mich App 13; 165 NW2d 436 (1968), lv den 381 Mich 798 (1969), and Kuisel v Farrar, 6 Mich App 560; 149 NW2d 894 (1967), lv den 379 Mich 770 (1967), is similarly misplaced. In both of these cases, as in Ruhala, the deposition sought to be used was the deposition of a party-opponent, not merely an adverse witness. None of these cases thus presented the appellate court with the choice we face today between construing MCR 2.308(A)(1) so as to confine subparagraph (b) within the bounds of the party-opponent admission rule or expanding it beyond the limitations of that rule. In summary, a review of the history of subparagraph (b) reveals that the 1963 revision which gave rise to the present misfit between MCR 2.308(A)(1)(b) and MRE 801(d)(2)(D) did not stem from a decision to deviate from limitations of the party-opponent admission Rule of Evidence, but rather from a desire to coordinate the court rule with the adverse party statute. [29] The authority conferred by that statute to cross-examine a witness in contravention of common-law restrictions has never been held to overcome objections to the witness' testimony based on the hearsay rule.