Court Opinion

ID: 9549719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:23:53.597636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:48.582948
License: Public Domain

Ott, J.
(dissenting)—Rule of Pleading, Practice and Procedure 26, RCW Vol. 0, authorizes the taking of a pretrial oral deposition of an adverse party. When the scrivener has transcribed the questions and answers as he heard and understood them, they are submitted to the witness for signature. Rule of Pleading, Practice and Procedure 30, RCW Vol. 0, authorizes the witness to make changes in the form or substance of either the questions or answers as transcribed, and to enter a statement of his reasons for making them. The corrected deposition shall then be signed by the witness as his sworn testimony. Errors which appear in the deposition can be eradicated by a motion to suppress that part of it. Rule of Pleading, Practice and Procedure 32, RCW Vol. 0.
When the witness, whose deposition has been previously taken, is called to testify at the trial, the contradictory answers to questions in his deposition can be used for pur*298poses of impeachment. Rule of Pleading, Practice and Procedure 26, RCW Vol. 0.
On the deposition in the instant case, the witness gave as his reason for the corrections:
“These changes are necessary for the reasons that at the time of the deposition either I did not understand the questions correctly, or the transcription is inaccurate or incomplete.” (Italics mine.)
Accordingly, appellant moved to suppress those portions of the deposition which did not constitute his answers to the questions the scrivener had transcribed. The motion was denied. In my opinion, the reason given by the witness, together with the undisputed testimony of his immediate repudiation of the answers to the transcribed questions, and his correction of the answers to conform with the transcribed questions before he would sign the deposition as expressing the truth, conclusively establishes the grounds for granting the motion to suppress. The office of a pretrial deposition is to discover the truth, and those matters which admittedly do not speak the truth, because of mistake or misunderstanding, should be stricken.
Assuming, arguendo, that the motion to suppress was properly denied, the court erred in permitting the respondent to use the repudiated answers for impeachment purposes. A person’s veracity as a witness cannot be impeached by his statement which he repudiated at the time the statement was made. Mojas v. McNutt, 40 Wn. (2d) 61, 240 P. (2d) 928 (1952). Impeachment can only be accomplished when both statements relied upon are shown to have been the actual statements of the witness and are in conflict. Repudiated statements do not establish the self-contradiction necessary for impeachment. State v. Fliehman, 35 Wn. (2d) 243, 212 P. (2d) 794 (1949).
The extensive use of the deposition for this purpose was prejudicial error which alone merits a new trial.
At the instance of the respondent, and over the objection of appellant, the court permitted the witness’ entire deposition to be read. The deposition then became substantive *299evidence of every fact established by it. When the witness has testified at the trial, Rule of Pleading, Practice and Procedure 26, RCW Vol. 0, does not permit his prior deposition to be read to the jury to establish substantive facts. That the deposition was used to establish substantive facts is conceded in the majority opinion in its justification of certain hypothetical questions:
“We have inspected each hypothetical to which error is assigned. In view of our previous ruling that the original deposition of the defendant was admissible in evidence, all of the questions assumed facts of which there was testimony in the record.”
By permitting the entire deposition to be read, the court compounded its previous error.
The trial court erred in permitting authors of textbooks to become expert witnesses in the trial of this case, without the authors’ being called as witnesses.
On direct and redirect examination, respondent’s counsel read excerpts from various medical textbooks to three of respondent’s medical experts, and then asked the witness: “Do you agree with this statement [of the author of the textbook] ? A. Yes, I do.”
Thus the hearsay testimony of the author of a textbook was admitted, on direct and redirect examination of respondent’s medical experts, to establish a medical fact. Textbook materials are not a substitute for medical testimony, and their use for this purpose constitutes reversible error. Skodje v. Hardy, 47 Wn. (2d) 557, 288 P. (2d) 471 (1955).
In my opinion, the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded with instructions to grant a new trial.
Mallery, J., concurs with Ott, J.
April 13, 1962. Petition for rehearing denied.