Court Opinion

ID: 9680326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:29:33.923391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:27.919693
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Defendants have filed a motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, for transfer to Court en Banc in which they state we have given no indication that-we reviewed this case de novo, or that we gave any consideration to the opinion evidence of lay witnesses offered by defendants and which we considered in the circumstances of record had been wrongfully excluded by the trial court. It is to be recalled that defendants’ lay witnesses testified to the facts they observed upon which they based their ex-*134eluded opinions. This was also true of plaintiffs’ lay witnesses giving opinion testimony. We thought we had covered these matters in the second paragraph of the opinion, in the closing paragraph of our discussion of the issue involving the exclusion of the offered testimony of the opinions of defendants’ lay witnesses,'and at the close of our opinion.
This case is a court tried simultaneous death case under “The Uniform Simultaneous Death Act” adopted in Missouri. See §§ 471.010, 471.030, 471.070, cited and quoted in the opinion, and § 471.-080. We perceive no escape from the observation in the opinion that sufficient proof of survivorship for a short time, if only one second, would serve to permit the survivor to act as a conduit of title to his or her heirs under said Uniform Act.
Counsel are mindful of the statutory admonition (§ 510.310, subd. 4) in cases tried upon the facts without a jury that “the judgment shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.”
The opinion discloses and the parties recognize that the testimony, factual and opinion (including the opinion testimony of lay witnesses admitted and opinion testimony of lay witnesses offered but excluded) was in irreconcilable conflict on the essential fact issue involved. We find nothing in defendants’ offer of proof with respect to the opinions of their lay witnesses that would change the result reached, which is the determination of this appellate court of this court tried case upon a review de novo under the law on the whole of the record before us; and therein we gave consideration to said offers of proof by defendants. The function of courts is to apply the law to the facts and not to rewrite the statutory law of the state.
We have reviewed the other matters presented in defendants’ motion and adhere to our rulings in the opinion.
The motion for rehearing or in the alternative to transfer to Court en Banc is overruled.
PER CURIAM: The foregoing per curiam opinion is adopted as the opinion of the court en banc.