Court Opinion

ID: 9628641
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:27:30.98278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:09.133293
License: Public Domain

Foster, J. (dissenting)
I cannot agree that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting a view of the premises under the circumstances disclosed by this record. If the condition has materially changed in the interval between the accident and the trial, the jury might be misled and a denial of a view, under the circumstances, is not an abuse of the judicial discretion. Wieber v. Everett, 155 Wash. 167, 283 Pac. 1085.
I think there was an abuse of discretion in permitting a view of the premises because of the changes made in the ten-month interval between the accident and the trial, which is emphasized by the reason given by the respondents’ counsel in the request for the view. The respondent wife admitted that the ladder standing on the patio at the time of the accident was a “deathtrap.” Respondents’ counsel desired the view not for the purpose of enabling the jury to understand the testimony but to contradict the deathtrap testimony.
The decisive issue in the controversy was whether the condition of the patio was so dangerous as to intrude itself upon the observation and appreciation of an ordinarily prudent person.. Where, as here, a fairly delicate observa*280tion of the physical attributes must be translated into an appreciation of danger, small changes assume increased importance. This may be without significance to gross perceptions, but may assume controlling importance in views involving fine judgments. The inquiry is: Were the changes material to a perception of danger, and, if so, were they sufficiently substantial to make a significant difference in that perception at the two different times? The answer is “Yes.”
It is beyond controversy that the patio was enlarged to many times its previous size, that it was painted a different color with a different type of paint applied to produce a rougher appearing surface, and that a flower box had been added so that the ladder perforce leaned against the house at a different angle. At the time of the accident, the patio was enclosed with a wire fence which was removed before trial. The totality of the changes produced a different mental image.2
Dean Wigmore stated the applicable criterion in the following passages of his work on evidence:
“The present condition of an object offered may not be the same as at the time in issue, nor so nearly the same as to be proper evidence of its former condition; accordingly, autoptic proference is allowable only on the assumption that the condition is now the same or sufficiently similar.” 4 Wigmore on Evidence (3rd ed.) 243, 246, § 1154(6).
“It may be noted, as one circumstance affecting the exercise of that discretion, that, since the present condition of an object is not always a good index of its prior condition at the time in issue, a view may well be refused where such a change of condition is likely to have occurred that a view *281of the object in its present condition would probably be misleading.” 4 Wigmore on Evidence (3rd ed.) 277, 279, § 1164.
Such then is a brief statement of my reasons for believing that the trial court erred in permitting the view of the premises because of the manifest changes made in the interval between the accident and the time of trial.
I would order a new trial.
Rosellini, J., concurs with Foster, J.

“Sensitivity to stimulus patterning introduces problems of organization going beyond sensitivity to stimulus differences. The basic organization appears to be that of figure-and-ground so that we recognize patterns as figures against a background whether or not.the patterns are familiar. Contours and surfaces are important determiners of how we perceive figures.
“Mainly, we perceive things, and we perceive environmental objects as thing-like, that is, as stable and enduring. The stability of perceived objects depends on various constancies: color- and brightness-constancy, shape-constancy, and size-constancy. . . .” (Part italics supplied). Hilgard, Introduction to Psychology, 281, 309 (1953).