Court Opinion

ID: 9808073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:26:59.361277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:08:55.355586
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.,
concurring. I concur in the opinion of the Court upon the ground therein stated that “There was no exception to the deposition till after the trial began.” I am very much influenced in this view by the reasoning of the Court in Shutte v. Thompson, 82 U. S., 151, Avhere the deposition was taken before an officer not authorized by law. The Court said, on page 159: “It is to be observed that the objections made- are all formal rather than substantial. Still they are quite sufficient to require the rejection of the deposition if there is nothing in the case to countervail their effect. But it is obvious that all the provisions made in the statute respecting notice to the adverse party, the oath of the witness, the reasons for making the deposition, and the rank or character of the magistrate authorized to take it, were introduced for the protection of the party against whom the testimony of the witness is intended to be used. It is not to be doubted that he may waive them. A party may waive any proAdsion, either of a contract or of a statute, intended for his benefit. If therefore it appears that the plaintiff in error did Avaive his right under the act of Congress, if he did practically consent that the deposition should be taken and returned to the Court as it Avas, and if by his waiver he has misled his antagonist, if he refrained from making objections known to him at a time when they might have been removed, and until after the possibility of such removal had ceased, he ought not to be *381permitted to raise the objections at all. If he may, he is allowed to avail himself of what is substantially a fraud. Parties to suits at law may assert their rights to the fullest extent, but neither a plaintiff nor a defendant is at liberty to deceive, either actively or passively, his adversary, and a court whose province it is to administer justice will take care that on the trial of every cause neither party shall reap any advantage from his own fraud.”
In the case at bar it appears that the deposition was taken on the 21st day of November and that the trial took place on the 25th day of the following January. This apparently gave the plaintiff ample opportunity to examine the deposition and object to any irregularity of form or substance. I do not mean to say that a failure to object in proper time would validate a blank commission. Merely formal irregularities may be cured and substantial rights may be waived, but it is impossible to validate that which has no legal existence. The plaintiff’s conduct does not have the legal effect of creating a commissioner, but is construed by the Court, in the furtherance of substantial justice, into a consent to the taking of the deposition under the circumstances under which it was taken. By withholding all objection when he knew the facts or by reasonable diligence might have known them, until it was too late to remedy defects which might otherwise have been remedied, he is deemed to have acquiesced. A void commission is essentially different from a defect in notice. The only object in the latter is to give the opposite party a reasonable opportunity of attending. If he actually attends and proceeds with the examination the object of the notice is attained. This is not so with other irregularities, which he generally has no means of knowing until after he does attend. Hence his attendance is not necessarily a waiver as to them, but even then he should assert his right *382of objection in good faitb and in due time. This seems to be the essential principle aimed at by section 1360 and 1361 of The Code.