Court Opinion

ID: 9448916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:49:43.606781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:36.783489
License: Public Domain

HASTINGS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The judgment of the district court has been reversed on the sole ground that the trial court committed prejudicial error in restricting cross-examination of witness Deeter. The cause is remanded for a new trial. It is held that the “trial judge should have had the benefit of the excluded cross-examination before deciding the case.”
With deference to the majority, I feel it has misjudged the context of the situation in which the ruling was made. Hence, I feel compelled to dissent.
Plaintiff’s action was predicated on the theory that defendant had made an oral contract of liability insurance covering an automobile owned by one Carol Newman. By virtue of a subsequent marriage, Miss Newman was known as Mrs. Acton at the trial.
Plaintiff had the burden of proving such oral contract of insurance. It sought to do this through the testimony of Miss Newman. It claimed such oral contract flowed from a conversation she had with defendant’s agent, Charles Deeter, on May 20, 1958.
As a part of its case in chief, plaintiff called Miss Newman and propounded certain questions to her and elicited answers thereto concerning this conversation with agent Deeter on May 20, 1958. The specific questions and answers critical to the point in issue were:
“Q. What did Mr. Deeter tell you this coverage, this insurance that you were talking about, what kind of insurance was it?
“A. Well, I wanted it to have insurance on the persons in the car ■ and to have the car insured itself, and I had the understanding it would be full coverage insurance.
“Q. What, if anything, did Mr. Deeter tell you about when this insurance would go into effect?
“A. He said that when I — from the time, I believe, we left the loan office, we went to pick the car up, and he said as soon as we drove the car from the lot that it would be insured.”
This was the sole testimony offered by plaintiff in chief relating to this conversation. It did not call agent Deeter as a witness.
In presenting its defense, defendant called Deeter as a witness. After Deeter had stated his name and address, defendant’s counsel asked him only one question and received one answer thereto, as follows:
“Q. Mr. Deeter, did you at any time on May 20, 1958, state or tell Carol Newman that she had an automobile policy of insurance on her automobile effective at any time on that date or at any time?
“A. No.”
Following the above answer to this one question on direct examination, witness Deeter was turned over to plaintiff’s counsel for cross-examination. The questions asked on cross-examination, the objections made thereto by defendant’s counsel, the rulings made by the trial court sustaining such objections and the colloquies of the court and counsel are correctly set out in full in footnote 1 of the majority opinion. They need not be repeated here.
No one denies that witness Deeter was called by defendant for the sole purpose of denying or rebutting the above statement attributed to him by witness Newman. Deeter gave an unequivocal answer — -“No.” He said nothing further and was not asked more by defendant.
It must be conceded that defendant limited its direct examination to this one *323question in order not to open the door to a broad cross-examination. The trial judge so understood the defense trial strategy and there was nothing wrong with it.
The majority opinion correctly states “that cross-examination of a witness is confined to the subject matter of his direct examination.” What it misconceives, in my judgment, is the scope of the “subject matter” inquired into by the question under scrutiny. The only subject matter mentioned in Deeter’s direct examination was whether he made the statement concerning insurance coverage attributed to him by witness Newman.1 He said he did not. He was not asked about any other statements he ’might or might not have made to Miss Newman.
The majority holding might be on sound ground if Deeter had been asked a question concerning this conversation as tending to prove an affirmative fact. The trial court made an observation to this general effect. In that event the door would have been opened to complete cross-examination on the subject matter of the conversation. That is not this case.
The majority opinion cites Alford v. United States, 282 U.S. 687, 691, 51 S.Ct. 218, 75 L.Ed. 624 (1931) as authority for the holding that “cross-examination is a matter of right.” There can be no quarrel with that statement. However, there can be no right to improper cross-examination.
A reading of the Alford case discloses that the witness in question “had testified to uncorroborated conversations of the defendant of a damaging character,” in a criminal ease. The opinion sets out in detail the purpose of the cross-examination and that case is readily distinguishable from the case at bar.
Further, in the Alford case, id. at 694, 51 S.Ct. at 220, the court states the well-recognized rule that the scope of cross-examination is within the sound discretion of the trial court. To the same effect, see Butler v. New York Central Railroad Company, 7 Cir., 253 F.2d 281, 283 (1958). This court will review the exercise of that discretion only to determine whether or not it has been abused. United States v. Bender, 7 Cir., 218 F.2d 869, 873 (1955), cert. denied, 349 U.S. 920, 75 S.Ct. 660, 99 L.Ed. 1253.
This reversal, as I read it, is not based upon an abuse of discretion but is justified on the ground that “the trial judge should have had the benefit of the excluded cross-examination.” The trial judge himself was in a better position to make that judgment. Having done so, I feel that the exercise of his discretion should be respected in view of the narrow ground found for disturbing it.
In this case, I feel we should adhere to our long established precedent of being slow to disturb an exercise of discretion by a trial judge, even though we might have ruled otherwise had we been sitting in his place.
We are not concerned here with the effect of a ruling that might impinge on the function of a jury. This was a bench trial and the trial judge alone was the arbiter.
No claim was made that the refused testimony was offered for impeachment purposes, as is frequently the case.
There is no dispute concerning the standards laid down by the courts with reference to the scope of cross-examination. Our difference of opinion here lies in the application of those standards to the subject matter of the question propounded on direct examination as revealed by the record in the case at bar.
I would affirm the judgment of the district court on the merits of the case.

. The majority opinion points with emphasis to the words “at any time” included in the critical question. The trial court was not misled by these words and plaintiff’s counsel made no point of them at the trial. I think we go too far in giving them an emphasis on appeal that apparently no one thought of at the trial.