Opinion ID: 225479
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Questions Concerning Testimony of James O. Jackson.

Text: 11 The plaintiff called James O. Jackson as a hostile witness. Jackson admitted that he was an officer of the defendant corporation, and under Rule 43(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., it is quite clear that so to call him was proper. 1 Five serious errors occurred in connection with the examination of this witness. (a) The trial judge restricted examination by the plaintiff's counsel to Jackson's activities relating to the corporation. This ruling was erroneous. Jackson said that fabrication was done at the corporation's plant by the corporation, but that outside assembly and erection were done by corporation employees on behalf of the partnership. Jackson himself admitted that for many years it had been the uniform practice for him to sign letters written on the partnership letterhead as manager of the partnership's engineering and purchasing departments. Dozens of such letters were admitted in evidence and Jackson admitted that this practice was known to and unobjected to by the partners. On this record, we think that Jackson was a managing agent of the partnership within the meaning of Rule 43(b) and that examination of him as an adverse witness should not have been restricted only to his activities on behalf of the corporation. 12 (b) Jackson's testimony when called by the plaintiff related to certain patents which he had applied for and which he had assigned to the defendant corporation. In these patents were certain statements about the minimum requirements for the steel which was to be used in gas storage tanks, which the plaintiff correctly contended constituted admissions. Despite the express provision of Rule 43(b) that witnesses in such situations may be cross-examined only upon the subject matter of the examination in chief, 2 the trial judge permitted cross-examination by defendants' counsel to range far afield. The transcript indicates that a Pennsylvania decision was cited to the trial judge as a basis for the ruling. It is clear, however, from the authorities cited that this is not a state law matter at all, but one to be governed by the federal rules and decisions. 13 It may well be that this mistake, by itself, would not be so prejudicial as to require a new trial, though the contrary has been declared. Jackson could and undoubtedly would have given the same testimony if and when called by the defendants for direct examination, so the testimony given would have been before the jury anyhow. But since there must be a reversal on other grounds, we call attention to Rule 43(b) for the trial judge's future guidance. 14 (c) We find, moreover, still a third error in the trial court's handling of the Jackson testimony and this one was highly prejudicial. The jury was instructed, with regard to it, that to the extent that testimony as produced from a person called for cross examination is not rebutted by either direct proof or circumstances it is conclusively taken to be true. A fair inference from the entire charge was that in the absence of rebuttal the plaintiff was bound by everything Jackson said. 15 We do not have here a case in which a party calls a supposedly favorable witness who gives unfavorable testimony. It is frequently said in such situations that the party calling the witness is bound by his testimony. That rule has been assailed by Wigmore as a primitive notion which no longer finds defenders. 3 But we need not in this case either affirm or repudiate that rule. Here, Jackson was called in the first place as an adverse witness under Rule 43(b), which expressly provides that such an adverse witness may be contradicted and impeached. Rule 43(b), we think, is utterly inconsistent with any notion about being bound by his testimony. It seems to us that any statement to the effect that a party is bound by the testimony of a witness whom he is free to contradict and impeach is inherently anomalous. 16 (d) The plaintiff complains that the witness Jackson was permitted to state that certain things done by East Ohio, the operating company, increased the hazard in the storage of the gas. There is no merit in this objection. The witness was an expert. The claim that acts of a third person increased the danger was part of the problem before the jury upon the question whether the defendants were negligent and whether their negligence caused the harm. 17 (e) Exclusion of the Patents. The plaintiff offered in evidence six patents or patent applications. Two of these were admitted generally. The remainder were excluded except for the purpose of impeaching James O. Jackson. It is contended by the plaintiff that the patents were substantive evidence and should have been admitted as such. The patents represented designs for gas storage tanks the same or comparable to the one which was the origin of this disaster. All of them were the work of Jackson and all had been assigned by Jackson to the defendant corporation. We think that exclusion of these patents was error. The rule is well settled which permits the receipt of admissions made by an agent of a party when the agent's powers are broad enough to constitute him the general representative of the principal with broad managerial responsibilities. McGrath v. Pennsylvania Sugar Co., 1925, 282 Pa. 265, 127 A. 780; York Mfg. Co. v. Chelten Ice-Mfg. Co., 1924, 278 Pa. 351, 123 A. 327; 4 Wigmore on Evidence § 1078 (3d ed. 1940). Since Jackson was manager of the defendants' purchasing and engineering department and since he designed the tank for the defendants, concluded negotiations on their behalf with East Ohio and finally supervised assembly of the tank, we have no doubt that his statements in the patents should have been received as admissions against all the defendants. Moreover, it was Jackson himself who applied for the patents in question and then assigned them to the corporate defendant. He was therefore a privy in title whose admissions could be received against his successors in interest. See 4 Wigmore on Evidence § 1080 (3d ed. 1940). 18 Here again we are not at all sure that this limitation imposed upon the reception of part of these documents would alone constitute reversible error. The jury had the benefit of most of the testimony in those which were admitted; the additional material would have been in part cumulative. But since the case must go back for a new trial the point is made clear for the benefit of the parties and trial judge. 19 (f) Writings of James O. Jackson. James O. Jackson had written several technical studies of the East Ohio storage tanks, and these the plaintiff offered as admissions. For the reasons given in the discussion of the patents, supra, we think that the trial judge erred in excluding them. 20