Court Opinion

ID: 9643637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:36:06.972766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:54.624027
License: Public Domain

RUTLEDGE, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
I think the judgment should be affirmed. I agree that there was sufficient evidence that defendant owned the offending car and that the driver was negligent. By virtue of the statute this created prima facie evidence that the driver operated the vehicle with defendant’s consent, and without more was sufficient to establish defendant’s liability.
ITowever, defendant himself testified that he did not consent to Dyson’s operation of the car and that Dyson, was driving it wholly without authority or permission. There was no other testimony bearing directly on the issue of consent. Plaintiffs attempted to produce the driver, but through no fault of their own were unable to do so. The majority hold, in effect, that the jury were required to accept the defendant’s denial. In my judgment, this invades the jury’s province in passing upon his credibility.
The 'verdict can be sustained only upon the assumption that the jury found the defendant’s testimony unworthy of belief and disregarded it entirely. Whether or not they could do this, if he had been contradicted in no material particular, need not be decided. Whether the statute be characterized as creating a “presumption” or a “prima facie case” upon proof of ownership [cf. Thomes v. Meyer Store, 1929, 268 Mass. 587, 168 N.E. 178], it has been held that even uncontradicted testimony by interested witnesses, such as defendant, is not conclusive, and may be disregarded by the jury; so that in the absence of evidence by disinterested witnesses the issue of credibility must be submitted to the jury. Glasgow v. Weldt, 1926, 218 App.Div. 749, 218 N.Y.S. 115; Steiner v. Royal Blue Cab Co., 1933, 172 Wash. 396, 20 P.2d 39; McMullen v. Warren Motor Co., 1933, 174 Wash. 454, 25 P.2d 99; cf. St. Andrassy v. Mooney, 1933, 262 N.Y. 368, 186 N.E. 867. But, assuming that the jury could not have disregarded the testimony given by the defendant merely because he was interested, if it had been contradicted in no material respect, the record shows that his testimony was directly in conflict with that given by Hayden, from whom he purchased the car, in important respects which required the jury to believe one or the other and that upon his cross-examination he was guilty of “hedging,” if not of self-contradiction in other respects. The evi*554dence comes to us in narrative form, but it discloses that Hayden testified he sold the car to defendant about August 1, preceding the accident on November 21, 1937; and that he delivered the car by leaving it parked in the street in front of defendant’s business premises. Defendant testified that the car was so delivered, was never removed from the street to his premises and was taken by Dyson, without authority, from the place where Hayden had parked it. Except for the date of the sale, all this might be consistent with Hayden’s testimony. But defendant also testified, positively and repeatedly, that the sale took place only three or four days preceding the accident, that is, about November 17 or 18, not in late July or early August, as Hayden stated with equal assurance. If Hayden’s story was true in these respects, defendant’s was false. If the car was sold to him in July or early August, it is inconceivable that it could have remained parked in the street for nearly four months and likewise that Dyson could have removed it just before the accident from the place where Hayden parked it. If Hayden’s version of the transaction is accepted, defendant’s variations from the facts became so gross as to cast doubt upon his entire testimony, and presented for the jury a clear-cut issue of fact and of credibility. It was the jury’s function to decide whether Hayden or the defendant was telling the truth and they have accepted Hayden’s account. Likewise, in view of that fact they have elected to disbelieve defendant’s denial that he consented to operation of the car by Dyson, who was shown to be his employee, though no affirmative proof was offered that his employment included driving of cars. The jury also may have taken into account other inconsistencies in defendant’s cross-examination, which I think they were entitled to do in the light of the contradiction between Hayden and the defendant, though perhaps in the absence of this these matters might not have been sufficient to constitute impeachment. Certainly the jury had the opportunity, which we have not had, of observing the witnesses and their demeanor upon the witness stand.
I think, therefore, that the statutory “presumption” or “prima facie evidence” was not overcome as a matter of law by testimony contradicted as was that of defendant here; that it was within the jury’s province to determine his credibility; and that we should not interfere with their verdict.