Court Opinion

ID: 9737232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:19:37.350532+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:57.462550
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING PRESIDING JUSTICE SULLIVAN delivered the opinion of the court:  In its petition for rehearing, defendant posits that this court improperly acted as trier of fact by weighing the evidence and judging the credibility of the witnesses — accepting as true the testimony of plaintiff’s witnesses and rejecting that of the witnesses it presented. Specifically defendant argues that the fact that we found inconsistencies and contradictions “in the evidence” in itself requires reversal of this case and submission of the questions raised thereby to the jury. A closer reading of the opinion indicates, however, that, in the passages to which defendant refers, the focus of our discussion was not on inconsistencies and contradictions between the testimony of the witnesses but, rather, on the fact that, even taken as true, the testimony of its own witnesses was “in its best light *** inconclusive” and indeed, actually contradicted “its assertion,” “its theory” and “its contentions” that the conditions on the track remained unchanged during the time between the accident and the inspection. It is this matter — the absence of a sufficient foundation for the admission of the inspection evidence — which was the basis of our decision and which defendant has failed to squarely meet or overcome. For example, defendant states that its witnesses “all placed the car at the same approximate location” at the time of the occurrence and the inspection. We do not believe, however, that merely placing the car in “approximately” the same location provided sufficient foundation for admission of the inspection evidence, particularly where there was testimony that the car had been “pushed further down the track” sometime between the accident and 5 a.m. Moreover, defendant’s own witnesses also stated that at the time of the inspection, the subject car was standing alone on the track uncoupled from the cars which, it is undisputed, were present on the track at the time of the accident. This alone establishes that conditions on the track had been altered and, specifically, that the subject car had been • involved in an uncoupling process. Defendant’s argument that even plaintiff’s witness stated that “when he left the yard at 5 a.m. he was the last one to touch the coupler” is clearly without merit since the very fact that he left the yard establishes that he could not know if anyone else touched the coupler between the time of his departure and its 9 a.m. inspection. Neither do we find the photographs submitted by defendant as a supplement to the record and marked by it to show where the boxcar at issue was located, and to indicate that the track is straight at that location, to be dispositive of the issue since, inter alia, they are not photographs of the accident scene itself but merely depict that portion of the yard where the accident occurred and were introduced for demonstrative purposes and as testimonial aids for the witnesses. Furthermore, whether or not the track was straight or curved at the point where the boxcar was situated, while significant to plaintiff’s version of the occurrence, does not directly bear upon the fundamental issue of whether a proper foundation was laid for introduction of the inspection results. In summary, defendant is, in effect, asking this court to do exactly what it claims we may not do, i.e., weigh the evidence and make a determination that the numerous inconsistencies it incorrectly states we found therein require reversal and remandment. However, it is our view that there is nothing in the petition which either fills in the foundational gaps in its own evidence to show what it failed to show at trial, i.e., that neither the car nor the coupler had been altered, repaired, moved or in any other way changed from the condition they had been in at the time of the accident or overcomes the contrary evidence — presented, as we stated, through its own witnesses as well as plaintiffs’ — that activity had occurred on the track with respect to the subject car when all the other cars, including the one to which the subject car was previously coupled and the one with which it had failed to couple, had been moved from the track at some time between the accident and the inspection. We therefore adhere to our previous findings and deny the petition for rehearing. Petition for rehearing denied. LORENZ and PEMCHAM, JJ., concur.