Court Opinion

ID: 9534698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:42:09.926111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:31:37.421888
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I concur in the result reached herein. I think it should be made clear, however, that an affidavit may not be used as evidence in cases of this kind. An affidavit is ordinarily excluded as hearsay. (See 6 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed.), secs. 1709, 1710.) Section 2009 of the Code of Civil Procedure permits its use in a limited number of situations in uncontested cases but does not give it the character of evidence in a contested case. The fact that section 2009 permits its use “upon a motion” does not mean that the issues in a contested case may be determined and a judgment rendered on the basis of written statements of parties not before the court and therefore not subject to cross-examination. Where a motion is concerned not with an incidental procedural matter but with the fundamental substantive issues in controversy, and the order deciding it is in effect a judgment on the merits, the ordinary rules of evidence apply. (See Lacrabere v. Wise, 141 Cal. 554 [75 P. 185].) It should also be made clear that an affidavit of a court investigator appointed by the judge and reporting to the judge is *439not within the intendment of the statute permitting a party to support his motion with affidavits procured and filed by himself.
Whether custody cases are of such a nature as to require a departure from these established principles is a question for the Legislature.