Opinion ID: 1493721
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: White's Inconsistent Statements were Prejudicial to the Appellant

Text: As we have seen, White made at least five separate statements regarding the accident. Those statements embodied four varying versions regarding his responsibility for the death of the two pedestrians: (1) White had not been in any accident. (2) White had not been in any accident that he knew of. (3) The accident must have happened while he was asleep. (4) White was guilty of the crime of hit-and-run in connection with the accident. Standard seeks to brush aside the appellant's effort to show imaginary inconsistencies in White's statements. The court below found that there were no inconsistent statements of fact made by White in reporting the accident to the appellant; that the appellant has not been in anywise prejudiced by any statement made by White; and that White has never retracted the statement that by reason of falling asleep he did not know that said accident had occurred. We do not agree with any of the foregoing propositions. The inconsistencies lurking in White's four versions of the accident are not imaginary, but real. They reflect the progressive disintegration in the self-assurance of White as he found himself caught in the web of circumstance. First, he attempted to brazen it out with the police by denying that he had been in any accident at all, and blaming the damage to his automobile first on one race track and then on another. Then, as the net closed around him, White modified his denial by adding that I know of. Confronted by the tell-tale photographs of his car, showing human blood and flesh on it, White told the appellant's attorney that the accident must have happened while he was asleep. Finally, when the net became too tight for comfort, White decided to make a clean breast of it, and he pleaded guilty to being a hit-runner. It is somewhat difficult to believe that any sober man, even while asleep at the wheel, would not know that he had struck two pedestrians with such force as to send their bodies hurtling through the air and cause them to land 60 or 80 feet from the point of impact. And the evidence is undisputed that White was sober when the accident occurred. One wonders, too, why White did not tell the appellant's representatives immediately that he had fallen asleep at the wheel. White explained that (1) he didn't think of it and that (2) he was quite sure that it was unimportant. One can well wonder, with the appellant, just what White would have considered important in narrating the facts to his insurance company! While on the witness stand in the court below, White adhered to his Version No. 3; namely, that he must have been unconscious or asleep when the accident occurred. And to this day, in its brief before this court, Standard insists that Version No. 3 is the true one, explaining that White pleaded guilty to the hit-and-run charge so that he could get a dismissal of the manslaughter charge, and for other reasons. If, however, we accept the postulate that White was sleep when the accident occurred, we find Standard on the other horn of the dilemma. If White was not conscious that an accident occurred, he pleaded guilty to a crime that he did not commit. Standard concedes  as indeed it must  that knowledge that an accident had occurred was an essential to the crime to which he had pleaded guilty. By pleading guilty, when he was not in fact guilty, White seriously crippled the appellant's possible defense on White's behalf in the civil actions brought against him in the state court. When one considers this prejudicial welter of inconsistencies, it is impossible to spell out co-operation on White's part. In the Valladao case, supra, which is the leading decision in California on the subject, the court stressed the devastating effect that an insured's inconsistent statements have upon the insurer's defense of suits brought against the insured under the policy. At page 334 of 13 Cal.2d at page 649, 89 P.2d of the opinion it was said: The false statements had been made to the traffic officer, the investigator and others. A false plea had been entered before the justice and a false writing subscribed as a report. When the true facts were disclosed, the company had to exactly reverse its position with regard to essential facts and virtually proclaim their parties and chief witnesses to be liars and wholly unworthy of belief. Practically its only props were struck from under it.    Moreover, had the insurer proceeded to defend on behalf of its assured, it faced the spectre of having its principal witnesses denounced in open court as perjurers in view of the `about-face' in their stories, reflected in the original actions by two verified but inconsistent and contradictory answers to the complaints of the respective injured persons. [Emphasis supplied] The impeachment of a witness by confronting him with previous inconsistent statements is not only a well-recognized rule in the general law of evidence, but it is specifically provided for by statute in California. Section 2052 of the Code of Civil Procedure reads as follows: A witness may also be impeached by evidence that he has made, at other times, statements inconsistent, with his present testimony; but before this can be done the statements must be related to him, with the circumstances of times, places, and persons present, and he must be asked whether he made such statements, and if so, allowed to explain them. If the statements be in writing, they must be shown to the witness before any question is put to him concerning them. Furthermore, it is well settled in California that a plea of guilty may be used as evidence against the same defendant in a civil case. In Langensand v. Obert, 129 Cal.App. 214, 218, 18 P.2d 725, 727, the court said: An exception to the rule that a judgment in a criminal prosecution cannot be received in a civil action to establish the truth of the facts in which it was rendered has been held to arise where the defendant in the criminal case pleaded guilty, and the record showing such plea is offered in a civil action against him growing out of the same offense, such a record being admitted not as a judgment establishing the fact, but as the deliberate declaration or admission against interest that the fact is so; in other words, a solemn confession of the very matter charged in the civil action. [Authorities cited] [Emphasis supplied] In Seltzer v. Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America, 252 N.Y. 330, 169 N.E. 403, 404, the Court of Appeals of New York said: After the commencement of the actions by his friends and associates, through his own attorneys, he [Jacob Wasserman] made an affidavit for the insurance company which was the reason for its defending the claims. The negligence charged against Wasserman was fast driving. In this affidavit he swore that he did not drive faster than 25 miles an hour and that no one in the car complained to him about driving too fast or asked him to drive slower; no remarks were made to him whatever about driving. This was important evidence bearing upon both the question of negligence and of contributory negligence of the plaintiffs. [Case cited] As the time of the trial drew near, Jacob Wasserman suddenly lost his memory. He could not recollect how fast he was driving and he could not recollect whether the people in the car had warned him or not. The investigator preparing the case for the company interviewed him in the courtroom during the trial preparatory to calling him in as a witness. His statement then was that he could not remember. The defendant did not call him on the trial of the negligence cases because of this failing memory. Who can tell whether Jacob Wasserman was telling the truth when he made the affidavit or when he said at the time of the trial that he could not remember. A failing memory may be a false excuse as well as a true one. A witness has been sent to jail for perjury who falsely testified to loss of memory. [Case cited] In the instant case, we too may well ask: Which of White's four versions of the accident was the true one? It is important to remember that: (1) He told the police and appellant's representatives that he had been in no accident; (2) He told appellant's representatives that he had been in no accident that he knew of; (3) He told appellant's representatives that his automobile must have killed the two pedestrians while he was asleep; (4) He told the court, in a formal plea of guilty, that he was a hit-and-run driver. We do not believe that any practicing attorney in any state, confronted with these four various versions on the part of his client, would consider that the latter was co-operating! [7] In such a situation, the appellant was within its rights in withdrawing from the defense of the civil cases against White. The version that White insisted was the true one when he testified in the court below, and which Standard declares is the true one in its brief before this court, is one that White's lawyer in the criminal case said was very hard to believe and one that he was quite sure a jury would not believe. This fact was brought out by the various appellees' own witnesses. The assistant probation officer of San Diego county, who investigated White's case, likewise found Version No. 3 hard to believe. The appellant therefore was justified in withdrawing from the defense of White's civil cases. Section 6068 of the Business and Professions Code of California provides in part as follows: § 6068. Duties as an attorney. It is the duty of an attorney: