Court Opinion

ID: 9666745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:26:50.833746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:32.523658
License: Public Domain

WINTERSHEIMER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because there was no reversible error in permitting the jury to evaluate all the evidence.
A trial is a search for the truth. The majority opinion requires almost 4,000 words to justify an appellate decision which prohibits the admission of important evidence and thereby obscures the judicial truth-seeking process.
This erudite and expansive essay on evidence results in excluding from the jury important facts necessary in the true truth-seeking process. Indeed it provides only half of the truth for the jury to evaluate. The majority labors long and hard to explain the simple question why it refuses to allow the jury to consider all the evidence. There is a lack of lucid legal reasoning to support the attenuated result.
The majority mixes an unpalatable stew of legal Darwinism and the early Nineteenth Century rule of Queen Caroline’s case in a fruitless effort to satisfy the inherent appetite for the truth that characterizes all juries.
Fifteen days after the accident, Duck-worth gave a statement to a claims adjuster in which he said that he was on personal business at the time of the accident. However, more than a year later, Duckworth gave a videotape deposition in which he stated that he was on company business when the accident occurred. At trial, both the videotaped deposition and the audiotape statement were admitted into evidence. The jury found that the person who apparently caused the accident was not in an employment or agency relationship with Grisanti at the time of the accident.
The most that could be argued is that technically the Court of Appeals erred in finding that the audiotape was presented as substantive evidence, rather than impeachment evidence. It is doubtful that the resolution of this question could change the result in this case. There was certainly no reason to accept discretionary review of this case and the majority opinion compounds that mistake.
Schaible v. Uhl, Ky. 343 S.W.2d 578 (1961) is clearly dispositive of the matter. It determined that a pretrial statement made by one of parties which tended to exonerate the defendant and was contradictory to that of the later testimony of the plaintiff was not an impeaching document but was evidence of admission against interest by a party and was admissible as substantive evidence. This new interpretation of the law of evidence implies that an ordinary person must be a student of the law to understand what is against his own interest. The majority improperly speculates on Duckworth’s knowledge or lack of knowledge and is an extraordinary leap of reasoning.
The efforts of the majority to distinguish Schaible, supra, are unconvincing. The attempt to ignore Duckworth as a party is also without legal merit and unrealistic in view of the fact that his apparent negligence was the direct cause of the accident and he was personally sued by the victim. He is certainly before the court even though he may be in default by reason of his failure to answer the claim against him. It could be argued that Duckworth had a substantial interest in entirely shifting or *818at least sharing the burden of liability with his employer.
It is curious to note that the dissent in Commonwealth v. Reneer, Ky. 734 S.W.2d 794 (1987) laments the fact that alleged half-truths relative to the absence of parole information but is now apparently satisfied and seeks to actively restrain the access of the jury in this case to all the evidence and thereby impede arriving at the whole truth. It is difficult to discern a consistent pattern of legal philosophy in comparing the dissent in Reneer, supra, and the majority here.
The majority grudgingly admits that the interest of justice exception permits the trial judge to have discretion in regard to certain foundation requirements. However, in an effort to discount this acknowledged exception, the majority incorrectly attributes to counsel for Grisanti a lack of good faith. It does not find that the trial judge abused his discretion.
The trial court and the Court of Appeals correctly followed the established law in this situation. The direct result of the new rule promulgated by the majority is that the jury will now have access to only half of the evidence which it needs to seek the truth.
GANT and STEPHENSON, JJ., join in this dissent.