Court Opinion

ID: 9569388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:22.949313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:55:30.392285
License: Public Domain

GOODWIN, J.,
dissenting.
While this court as a general rule allows the trial court wide discretion and will not reverse an order granting a new trial if there is any reasonable basis for sustaining it, Foxton v. Woodmansee, 236 Or 271, 283, 386 P2d 659, 388 P2d 275 (1964), I believe the majority in the present case takes a backward step in the law of evidence in order to avoid reversing an order granting a new trial.
The formal and mechanical employment of the hearsay rule to exclude convenient, relevant, and trustworthy evidence is subject to well-deserved criticism. See McCormick, Evidence 633-634, §305 (1954). Now this court further sanctifies formality by holding that evidence which it is perfectly proper for the jury to hear in deciding what weight to give the expert’s opinion cannot be considered by the jury as evidence of value. New juries in condemnation cases will ever understand the difference, and in my opinion there is no practical reason why they should. See State Highway Commission v. Greenfield, — Mont —, 399 P2d 989 (1965).
It is true that in Highway Com. v. Parker et al, 225 Or 143, 357 P2d 548 (1960), we said, since hearsay was not in that case being offered as substantive evidence, that we were holding only that the expert *434could testify concerning hearsay comparable sales as a foundation of his opinion. It is difficult, however, to read the opinion in the Parker case without discerning the reasoning underlying its salutary rule. The same reasoning equally should permit responsible experts to testify about comparable sales as evidence of value.
In the trial of routine condemnation cases neither party is seriously concerned about comparable sales as hearsay; the adversaries direct their attack against each other’s experts as to the comparability of their respective sales. In the case at bar, opposing experts used some of the same sales, but drew different inferences from them. The trial judge adequately safeguards this land of evidence by screening the experts. When there is a bona-fide question about the trustworthiness of the evidence, such evidence is easy enough to impeach.
It seems particularly unfortunate for this court to exert a retrograde force in this area of the law of evidence when the parties during the trial both thought the evidence was properly before the jury. It was only after receiving a disappointing verdict that a careful post-trial scrutiny of the record turned up for the first time the possibility that the hearsay might have been objected to as hearsay. It seems distressing to learn now that instead of leaving the door open in the Parker case the court was really closing it.
I would let the verdict stand.
Sloan, J., joins in this dissent.