Court Opinion

ID: 9783275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:43:02.511606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:21.728949
License: Public Domain

CARAWAY, J.,
dissenting.
|,I respectfully dissent.
While the majority cites the important description of the manifest error test and the trier of fact’s dominion over the credibility of witnesses from Rosell v. ESCO, 549 So.2d 840 (La.1989), it fails to quote from that case and review the important caveat to the deference owed the trial court, expressed as follows:
When documents or objective evidence so contradict the witness’s story ... that a reasonable fact finder would not credit the witness’s story, the court of appeal may well find manifest error or clear wrongness even in a finding purportedly based upon a credibility determination.
Id. at 844-845.
The objective evidence was that which the officer obtained immediately at the accident scene from the two impartial eyewitnesses. One of those witnesses was able to testify, and the trial court accepted that testimony but rejected it out-of-hand unjustifiably along with the officer’s objective conclusion. I too would follow Rosell, but would find the trial court’s ruling clearly wrong.