Court Opinion

ID: 9448171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:24:50.142285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:18.975134
License: Public Domain

LEONARD P. MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Were this merely another case in which the damages awarded were “excessive” but not “grossly excessive” 1 or high but “not monstrous,” 2 a dissent in this case would add nothing to the literature already available on the subject or to the analyses found in the various opinions in Southern Pacific Co. v. Guthrie, 9 Cir., 1951, 186 F.2d 926 or the suggestion of power to review damages found in a recent opinion in this circuit *692(Dagnello v. Long Island R. R. Co., 2 Cir., 1961, 289 F.2d 797. Actually, such adjectives as monstrous, inordinate, outrageous and excessive are meaningless as legal standards for decision or review. Possibly some day the courts will allow the shuttlecock of responsibility for damage control now being batted back and forth between trial and appellate courts to come to rest on one side or the other of the procedural court, thus giving the spectator litigants an opportunity to know where it is.
The importance of this case lies in the fact that, in my judgment, it overrides the principles and the spirit of the Supreme Court’s Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins 3 and Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. York4 decisions. If that Court’s statement that “the outcome of the litigation in the federal court should be substantially the same, so far as legal rules determine the outcome of a litigation, as it would be if tried in a State court” (326 U.S. 99, 109, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 1470), is to be taken at all seriously, we have a situation in which a mass of evidence of vital importance in a jury case was admitted in a Federal court which even the majority concedes would be inadmissible in the same case in the State court located across the street. And all this because of the fortuitous circumstance of diversity.
There can be no doubt that testimony (by written interrogatories) of several witnesses that they had in their own minds formed the conclusion that the news article referred to plaintiff and to a Mrs. Gregg Dodge must be considered as highly material. But this, of course, was the very conclusion which was for jury determination upon the facts. That a jury would not have been strongly influenced by such speculative conclusions is scarcely open to doubt.
The problem posed is whether Rule 43 (a)5 supersedes the Erie-Tompkins, Guaranty Trust-York rule. Rule 43(a) is clear enough. It permits the admission of all evidence (1) admissible under the statutes of the United States (inapplicable here); (2) admissible in United States courts “on the hearing of suits in equity” (inapplicable here because this is a common law jury case); and (3) admissible “under the rules of evidence applied in the courts of general jurisdiction of the state in which the United States court is held” (this third category alone applies). The Rule continues that “the statute or rule which favors the reception of the evidence governs.” This provision is likewise inapplicable because no statute is involved and no New York rule favors admission. To the contrary as the majority concede, “the New York case law calls for exclusion.”
Fundamental in any consideration of the problem here is the fact that this is a common law jury ease. Throughout the ages, evidentiary rules have been built up by the courts and legislators whose practical experience has indicated that the goal of an accurate determination of the truth is best served by the observance of somewhat different rules in jury cases than in non-jury equity cases. The reason for this difference is that a judge trained in the law is better able to weigh the law and the facts. Hearsay evidence is excluded because it is apt to lack reliability. Opinion evidence is confined to experts in the particular subject under consideration.
Of course, all rules of evidence are not within the purview of the Erie doctrine. If a rule of evidence is directed not toward reaching a particular result but toward promoting an efficient and fair trial, and is not directly related to primary rights and duties, it might well be “procedural” for Erie purposes. For example, rules governing the admission of impeachment evidence and the scope of cross examination would clearly fall within this category. See Note, 66 Harv. *693L.Rev. 1516 (1953). On the other hand, some State rules of “evidence” are so intertwined with primary rights and duties and are so obviously directed toward reaching a particular result that they are clearly “substantive” in the Erie sense, and should apply irrespective of what a federal equity court might have done, Such would be a State parol evidence rule. As this court said in Zell v. American Seating Co., 2 Cir., 1943, 138 F.2d 641, 643, reversed on other grounds, 1944, 322 U.S. 709, 64 S.Ct. 1053, 88 L.Ed. 1552: “Were the parol evidence rule a rule of evidence, we could decide this question without reference to state court decisions. But the federal courts have held, in line with what has become the customary doctrine in most states, that it is a rule of substantive law, i. e., the extrinsic proof is excluded because no claim or defense can be founded upon it ’ ’ Accord, Long v Morris 3 Cir., 1942 F.2d 653, 141 A.L.R. 1041.
The fallacy in the majority opinion, in my opinion, is that it proceeds to determine what a hypothetical federal equity court would have done before making an initial classification of the State ex-elusionary rule. Thus, I presume, the majority, if it could find a federal equity exception to the parol evidence rule, would apply this exception notwithstanding a contrary State rule, thereby, in effeet, changing the State substantive law as to rights and duties flowing from certain contracts.
The State exclusionary rule in defamation cases is not as obviously “substantive” as the parol evidence rule. In some respects, it is merely one aspect of the general rule excluding lay opinion evidence. Nonetheless, it clearly has certain “substantive” overtones. There can be no dispute that the evidence sought to be excluded is of such a prejudicial nature that it could easily have affected the outcome of the law suit. And it seems equally clear that it is a rule of special pertinence to defamation actions and is rigidly enforced in New York (see Julian v. American Business Consultants, 1956, 2 N.Y.2d 1, 155 N.Y.S.2d 1, 137 N.E.2d 1), despite the more flexible treatment in New York of opinion evidence in other fields. See, e. g., Greenfield v. People of State of New York, 1881, 85 N.Y. 75; Matter of Herrmann, 1912, 75 Misc. 599, 136 N.Y.S. 944. Just as in a contract action, certain oral statements cannot create rights and duties, so too in a libel action in New York a defamatory statement which does not directly refer to the plaintiff cannot be made the basis of a recovery merely because certain individuals are willing to state that they believed the statement to refer to the plaintiff. This rule is, in some respects, part and parcel of the substantive defamation law of New York, evincing a strong State policy which federal courts in diversity actions should respect regardless of what a federal equity court might have done,
ginee a]1 ^ doorg of RuIe 4g(a) are cloged t<> ^ reception of the evidence in ^estion’ what door does the ma» pry open to gain admission? Surprisingly enough, the “equity” door in a concededly common law case. To “conclude that a federal equity court would have admitted the evidence in question” is to assume a non-existent situation. This jury case could not possibly have been brought in equity. Therefore, an equity court could never have been faced with the problem of admission or exclusion, Of what pertinence can it be, as a foundation for decision, to say that “had the question arisen, a Federal court hearing a suit in equity would have admitted the ■ identifying evidence here put forth” ?
I agree completely with the majority that “The rules of evidence are more than fragmentary bits of specialized ground rules”; and that they are “supposedly best designed to promote and protect the truth finding process.” New York State in its court decisions has decided that “truth finding” is best achieved by exclusion; other States have held the contrary. In final analysis, therefore, in my opinion, the majority are, in effect, holding that in a Federal court whether the action be common law or equity, the judge can receive any evidence he may choose to accept under broad principles *694of federal law (whatever they may be) because some court somewhere might in an equitable action admit the evidence. This I believe puts an end to any of the relevant principles of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins and Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. York.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.

. Southern Pacific Co. v. Guthrie, 9 Cir., 1951, 186 F.2d 926.

. Affolder v. New York, Chicago and St. Louis R. R. Co., 1950, 339 U.S. 96, 70 S.Ct. 509, 94 L.Ed. 683.

. 1938, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188.

. 1945, 326 U.S. 99, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 89 L.Ed. 2079.

. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.