Court Opinion

ID: 9468710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:21:50.925024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:01.069991
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In my view, the District Court’s action in admitting into evidence a portion of plaintiffs’ amended complaint was fully supported by the relevant precedents and not unfairly prejudicial to plaintiffs’ case. I would affirm the judgment entered for defendant on the verdict of the jury.
In Stolte v. Larkin, 110 F.2d 226, 231—32 (8th Cir. 1940), the plaintiff Larkin sued three defendants, Albert C. Stolte, Everett Stolte, and H. W. J. Smith. The case against Everett Stolte was based on the theory that his car struck plaintiff’s motorcycle while Stolte was on the wrong side of a highway. Stolte suggested as part of his defense that the accident was in fact the fault of the co-defendant Smith, who was driving a car in front of plaintiff’s motorcycle. The Smith car and the motorcycle were traveling south, while the Stolte car was going north. The plaintiff’s complaint alleged that the Smith car negligently came to a halt, or nearly so, and thus blocked the path of the plaintiff’s motorcycle, which, as noted, was traveling behind the Smith car. This allegation fit Stolte’s theory that the motorcycle struck his car when it was forced to swerve to avoid hitting the Smith car. Stolte offered in evidence this portion of the complaint, relating to Smith’s conduct, and the trial court sustained an objection and excluded the evidence. On appeal, this Court reversed. In language applicable to the case now pending, we said:
That statements in pleadings in the nature of admissions . . . are admissible is established not only in federal courts and in Minnesota, but generally.
110 F.2d at 232 (citations omitted).
Stolte quite clearly indicates, moreover, that the fact that a pleading is directed against a person no longer a party to the case, does not affect its admissibility. In Stolte, id., this Court referred to a Minnesota case, Bakkensen v. Minneapolis Street Railway Co., 184 Minn. 274, 238 N.W. 489 (1931), and had the following to say:
In this respect the Bakkensen case, supra, seems particularly apposite because there the pleading offered had to do with state*1161ment in a cause of action against both the operator of a street car and the operator of an automobile where, upon death of the automobile driver, a new action was filed against the street car operator alone and in the second action the former pleading was introduced. Here, plaintiff stated a cause against the drivers of two automobiles but on trial virtually abandoned the action against one driver (Smith) and a verdict was directed for that defendant.
Stolte has never been overruled or even spoken of in a disapproving fashion in any of this Court’s subsequent opinions. Indeed, its principle was reaffirmed in Ross v. Philip Morris & Co., 328 F.2d 3, 14-15 (8th Cir. 1964). Most of the authorities in other circuits are in accord. In Giannone v. United States Steel Corp., 238 F.2d 544 (3d Cir. 1956), for example, it was said that “[b]y the weight of authority even withdrawn or superseded pleadings are admissible.” Id. at 547 (footnote omitted). To the same effect is Continental Ins. Co. of N.Y. v. Sherman, 439 F.2d 1294, 1298 (5th Cir. 1971) (emphasis supplied):
As a general rule the pleading of a party made in another action, as well as pleadings in the same action which have been superseded by amendment, withdrawn or dismissed, are admissible as admissions of the pleading party to the facts alleged therein, assuming of course that the usual tests of relevancy are met.
These principles were scrupulously followed by the District Court in this case. One of the issues at the trial, perhaps the most important issue, was how much Griffin could see from the driver’s seat in the bus. Griffin was of course maintaining that there was a blind spot from which he could not see the Garman boy. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, took the position that “it wasn’t the adequacy or the inadequacy of the mirrors that was the problem, it was his [Griffin’s] misunderstanding as to where the boy was.” 1 Obviously a statement by plaintiffs that in fact there was a blind spot because of how the bus was constructed is material to that issue. It is not contended that the portion of the pleading read to the jury contained a legal conclusion, as opposed to an allegation of fact. The allegation read to the jury by defense counsel was that “the bus was defective in that it was so constructed and its mirrors so positioned that a full and complete view of the area within the path of the bus was not discernible by a person positioned in the driver’s seat.” Tr. 164. The allegation, if believed, would tend to lessen the driver’s fault.
The District Court examined the matter fully and took pains to eliminate any unfairness to the Garmans. The court permitted plaintiffs’ counsel to read to the jury Griffin’s answer denying the allegations of the amended complaint. The court also observed:
I believe any prejudicial aspect, any improper prejudicial aspect, can be taken care of through some further instruction by the Court regarding the bus company if that is desired.
Tr. 163-64. The jury could have been told, for example, that the pleading had been filed at a time when the bus company was also a party defendant, and that the bus company sued had subsequently been dismissed because it was not the company that had manufactured or sold the bus involved in the accident. Counsel for plaintiffs did not request any clarifying or explanatory instruction.
How does the Court today seek to distinguish Stolte and avoid the force of this reasoning? It is suggested, ante, p. 1158, that in Stolte the allegation admitted concerned “the conduct of an adversary party [Smith] who was still a party at the time the evidence was admitted at trial.” True enough, but the Stolte opinion, as is shown by portions already quoted, stresses that the *1162action against Smith had been virtually abandoned, and treats this circumstance as a factor cutting in favor of admissibility, not against it. We are told also, ante, pp. 1158-1159, that the pleading admitted here did not involve the conduct either of the plaintiff or of the defendant against whom it was offered. With deference, I disagree. A statement that a bus is so constructed that the driver cannot see out of it most certainly concerns the driver’s conduct. In Stolte, furthermore, the pleading admitted involved the conduct of Smith, not of Stolte, who offered it in evidence. It is true that the pleading was filed right before the period of limitations would have expired. But why is this circumstance relevant? Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 provides, without exception, that
The signature of an attorney constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the pleading [and] that to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief there is good ground to support it ....
As the Third Circuit remarked in Giannone v. United States Steel Corp., supra, 238 F.2d at 547, “[m]ost of the authorities considering admissions as evidence conclude that pleadings today are supposed to be factual rather than fictional and therefore should be regarded as probative and admissible.”
I quite agree that allowing pleadings to be used as admissions may in some cases run afoul of the permission given in Fed.R. Civ.P. 8(e)(2) to plead hypothetically, inconsistently, or in the alternative. If, for example, a defendant brings in a third-party defendant and in the course of doing so hypothetically alleges its own liability, it would be both unfair and illogical to use the hypothetical admission as evidence against the defendant and third-party plaintiff. That, and only that, is the holding of Continental Ins. Co. of N.Y. v. Sherman, supra, on which the Court today relies. Or if a complaint contains two counts, each setting forth an alternative and mutually inconsistent theory of liability, it would be unjust to admit the allegations of one count as evidence on the trial of the other. That, and only that, is the holding of Gould v. Oliver, 2 Man. & G. 208, 133 Eng.Rep. 723 (C.P. 1840). As the court said there, “If not guilty, and a justification be pleaded to a declaration in trespass, the admission of the trespass in the justification [a species of confession and avoidance] will not entitle the plaintiff to a verdict on the plea of Not guilty.” 2 Man. & G. at 234, 133 Eng.Rep. at 734.
The difficulty with using this line of argument to reverse the judgment in the instant case is that the amended complaint here was not hypothetical, alternative, or inconsistent. It did not allege two theories of liability, (1) that Griffin, but not the bus company, was at fault, and (2) that the bus company, but not Griffin, was at fault. It alleged that both Griffin and the bus company were responsible for the Garman boy’s death, through “concurring acts and omissions . . . . ” Amended Complaint 11V, Designated Record (D.R.) 9. There is a tension, so to speak, built into this allegation, because the very circumstance alleged to create liability on the part of the bus company also has some tendency to exculpate Griffin. But the same thing could have been said in Stolte v. Larkin, supra, where the more Smith appeared to be at fault, the less any negligence of Stolte’s would seem to have to do with Larkin’s injuries.
I do not claim that the situation is entirely free of the danger of jury confusion or unfair prejudice. Usually, however, the judgment whether such dangers outweigh the probative value of a given piece of evidence is left to the trial court. Fed.R. Evid. 403. The district courts are in the front line of the battle for justice. They make many decisions on each day of trial, often necessarily without much time for the luxury of reflection. Here, the District Court carefully weighed the situation, limited the portion of the pleading read to the jury strictly to matters of fact, permitted opposing counsel to read a portion of another pleading, invited counsel to propose a clarifying instruction, and at length exercised its discretion in favor of admissibility. This decision, it seems to me, was fully warranted by our cases and the general *1163preference of the modern law of evidence to resolve doubts in favor of admissibility, so that the triers of fact may exercise their judgment on the basis of as much relevant information as possible.
The cases in this Court are legion that counsel against disturbing this kind of exercise of judgment by a district court, in the absence of “a clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion.” Wade v. Haynes, 663 F.2d 778, 783 (8th Cir. 1981). What Judge Matthews, joined by Judges Van Oosterhout and Mehaffy, said in 1964 bears repeating now:
We approach the question whether the exclusion of evidence offered by plaintiff was prejudicial error, mindful that under Rule 61, Fed.R.Civ.P., no error in the admission or exclusion of evidence is ground for granting a new trial or for vacating a judgment, unless a refusal to do so is inconsistent with substantial justice. See Great American Insurance Company v. Horab, 8 Cir., 309 F.2d 262 (1962). In Hawkins v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 8 Cir., 188 F.2d 348, 351-352 (1951), in speaking for the court, Judge Johnsen, now Chief Judge, stated the applicable rule in this manner:
“ * * * [T]he admission or exclusion of any evidence, as being properly relevant or being too remote, is in the federal courts a matter primarily for the trial court’s judgment, and its rulings in this respect will not be disturbed except for clear and prejudicial abuse of the discretion.”
Ross v. Philip Morris & Co., supra, 328 F.2d at 14.
I respectfully dissent.

. The quotation is from plaintiffs counsel’s closing argument to the jury, Tr. 200. Similarly, at an earlier point counsel for plaintiffs argued that the decedent “was not seen, not because of any mirrors [that] were not working, but because he [Griffin] thought he [the Garman boy] had cleared." Tr. 184.