Court Opinion

ID: 9446649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:00:27.380156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:43.780662
License: Public Domain

PARKINSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority holds that an investigating officer of the law called to the scene of an automobile collision could testify, over objection, on defendant’s cross-examination to a self-serving exculpatory declaration made by the defendant to him in the absence of the plaintiff when the defendant walked up to the officer’s car and made the deliberate exonerating statement although no part of the conversation was inquired into nor was even one syllable of one word of that conversation testified to on direct examination, and also holds that when the undisputed evidence is that the plaintiff, who was a guest in an automobile involved in the collision, was watching, that he saw and that he warned the driver, a jury question as to whether he was or was not guilty of contributory negligence was presented. I do not believe either holding is the law in Indiana and I must, therefore, respectfully dissent.
The majority does not decide whether defendant’s self-serving declaration was admissible as part of the res gestae but holds that it was admissible on cross-examination within the discretion of the District Court because the investigating officer testified to the limited fact on direct examination that he had a conversation with the defendant but it was out of the presence of the plaintiff. Accordingly I make no comment on the res gestae question other than to observe that I can visualize the testimonial gallimaufry which would result if the question of liability is to be determined judicially on self-serving declarations made by one party in the absence of the other, to an officer of the law who responds to a call to and arrives at the scene of the collision to investigate.
The District Court overruled the plaintiff’s objection, which was as follows:
*59“I am going to object to the question as to what the conversation was, on the ground that it is improper cross-examination where the witness has testified that the conversation was held out of the hearing of the plaintiff, and my asking the question as to whether he had a conversation and asking who was present did not open up the subject for cross-examination.” (Our italics.)
Thus the objection of the plaintiff placed the issue unequivocally and squarely before the court that the question called for a conversation between the witness and the defendant in the absence of the plaintiff and was not opened up by the plaintiff on direct examination. Accordingly all reference to res gestae in the majority opinion is pure dicta because if the objection, as stated, was erroneously overruled the District Court committed reversible error as there is no question but that the admitted evidence was prejudicial to the plaintiff.
Having been a state and federal trial judge in Indiana for over twenty years I fully realize that “it is not always easy to determine what is within and what is without the scope of the direct examination” and “[tjherefore, much is necessarily left to the sound discretion of the trial court in determining what is proper cross-examination,” but it takes no judicial genius to know whether any portion of a conversation has been inquired about or testified to on direct examination. If no part of an oral statement or conversation has been put in evidence by a party on direct examination his opponent cannot, over objection, go into the subject matter thereof. It is only when a part of an oral statement has been put in on direct examination that an opponent, on cross-examination, may put in the remainder of what was said on the same subject at the same time. Wigmore Vol. VII, 3rd Edition, § 2115.
The case of Osburn v. State, 1905, 164 Ind. 262, 73 N.E. 601, 606, is inapposite. The declaration there in question was clearly competent. “The state was entitled to prove said declaration of appellant, and the most that can be said is that it was not proper to be brought out on cross-examination.” The Supreme Court of Indiana then held further that the defendant was not, therefore, affected by its admission on cross-examination since the witness could have “testified to said statement in his examination in chief in regular order.” We all know that it is in this field of admitting evidence out of order that the trial court has the right to exercise discretion but no trial court can, over objection, admit prejudicially incompetent evidence either in or out of order or either with or without discretion.
Here the defendant was permitted to prove by the investigating officer of the law that he told the officer in the absence of the plaintiff “that the green arrow was lit as he made his left turn” and that the driver of the car in which plaintiff was riding “came through and struck him”. Certainly no one would have the temerity to contend that those self-serving declarations would have been competent proof on direct examination if the officer had been called as a witness for the defendant. Thus it was not a question of evidence being received out of order, wherein the trial court does have discretion, but this is a case where the District Court overruled the plaintiff’s objection for the reason that counsel for the plaintiff “asked him on direct whether he talked to the defendant.” This was clearly erroneous as no part of the conversation having been called for by the plaintiff, the admission of testimony dealing with what was said by the defendant to the officer could not have been justified by recourse to the rule that permits the whole of a conversation to be developed where a part has been drawn out by the plaintiff on direct examination. Hicks v. State, 1937, 213 Ind. 277, 294, 11 N.E.2d 171, 12 N.E.2d 501.
The plaintiff was not the driver of the car but rather was riding as a guest therein. Under the law in Indiana a *60guest riding in an automobile is required to exercise only that degree of care for his own safety as would an ordinarily prudent person under like circumstances. However, in a case such as this the law in Indiana requires a guest to watch, see and warn as the absolute maximum to meet the standards of due care. When he has done all three of those things he is not guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, City of Union City v. Fisher, 1930, 91 Ind.App. 672, 676-677, 173 N.E. 330; Lindley v. Sink, 1940, 218 Ind. 1, 19, 30 N.E.2d 456, 2 A.L.R.2d 772; and the giving of the instruction on contributory negligence was, therefore, reversible error. Gergely v. Moore, 1954, 125 Ind.App. 263, 267, 120 N.E.2d 637, 122 N.E.2d 142, transfer to Supreme Court denied 2/9/55.
Here the undisputed evidence is that the plaintiff was watching, he saw the defendant’s car was not going to stop and then warned the driver by calling to him: “The guy is coming through.” Thus the plaintiff did everything which an ordinarily prudent person would have done under the same or similar circumstances and failed to do nothing which an ordinarily prudent person would have done under the same or similar circumstances. In short there was nothing more he could possibly have done. He met the maximum requirements and the evidence being undisputed reasonable men could draw no other inference but that the plaintiff was completely free from contributory negligence. The law in Indiana is well established that the plaintiff having watched, having seen and having warned the driver he was not guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law and the trial court committed reversible error in permitting that issue to go to the jury.
Not only was it reversible error to submit the issue of contributory negligence to the jury but that error was compounded when the District Court, over plaintiff’s objection, permitted the defendant to reopen the issues at the conclusion of all the evidence and file an additional answer raising the defense for the first time.
If there ever was a verdict based on a record pregnant with flagrant reversible error this is it. I would reverse and remand for a new trial.