Court Opinion

ID: 9642516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:01:19.01795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:49.059751
License: Public Domain

.Hammond J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
I agree with the Court that the trial judge should have *613asked the jurors on voir dire substantially the questions that appellant’s counsel requested. I see no need to reverse, however, for prejudice was not shown and is not fairly inferable. The jurors sitting on front benches, but a few feet from the clerk, hardly can fail to have heard the names of the parties when the case was called for trial a few minutes before Judge Niles asked the question he did as to possible prejudice as to a “religious corporation”. Immediately after he asked it the jurors again heard the names of the parties, when they were sworn. No juror could have failed to know that the Roman Catholic Archbishop was the religious corporation to which possible prejudice was to be related and no juror felt disqualified.
The Court’s decision on the use of the altered statement of the witness Moore seems to me wrong and unfortunate. It is still the rule in Maryland—whether or not it is a good or bad rule—that negligence cases are supposed to be tried and determined as if insurance were not involved—even negligence cases against charitable corporations. If the defendant brings out the fact that he is insured generally he may not call for a mistrial even though, in the words of this Court as to juries in International Co. v. Clark, 147 Md. 34, 42, “it seems to be natural and a weakness of human nature to allow the fact that the record defendant will not have to pay the judgment, to influence them in their verdict * *
If the aim is to continue to be to keep from the jury whether or not the defendant is insured, a defendant who desires to bring out the truth by use of a statement that contains a reference to insurance should be allowed to alter the statement even to the point of slight distortion of meaning, and use it.
A fundamental and primary purpose of a law suit is to reveal the true facts. Because a law suit is an adversary contest is no reason to put difficulties in the way of this purpose by hampering a party who seeks to show facts favorable to him. The Court has erected such a road block by finding a distortion of meaning where none existed and thus requiring a defendant to elect between not using a paper calculated to draw out the truth and using it at the disadvantage of letting the jury know he is insured.
*614Father Monmonier’s reply to Mrs. Brown’s statement that the floor was slippery and she hoped the church’s insurance was paid up—that she was not to worry about it,—could have meant any one or more of a number of things. It could have been intended, for example, to say politely, that the matter was none of Mrs. Brown’s business, or to say that which ought to be done under the circumstances would be done. As altered the statement said the floor was slippery and Father said not to worry about it. The reply to Mrs. Brown’s remark, as changed, meant just as much or just as little as the reply to her original remark. Certainly there was no substantial alteration of meaning, or even the slightest of distortions.
It may well be that the rule as to the jury’s knowledge of insurance should be changed. If so, it should be done directly by the Legislature. The Court should not, I feel, change it piecemeal by requiring a defendant to reveal the fact he is insured or lose the use of a weapon effective in bringing out the truth.
By straining to find an altered meaning, where none existed, the Court has begun the change in the instant case, it seems to me.