Court Opinion

ID: 9722008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:14:27.853468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:30.029918
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(concurring). Because the plaintiff Fernandes admitted to the judge that he had forged the letter ostensibly written on behalf of Sun Marketing and Refining Company, and because that letter would have been significant evidence favorable to the plaintiffs, I agree that the judge properly dismissed the case on account of fraud on the court.
I write separately only because I think that a word of caution is in order. The precious right of trial by jury is jeopardized by any suggestion that a jury case may be dismissed or the defendant may be defaulted whenever a motion judge or trial judge, after measuring a party’s credibility and without the benefit of an admission such as the judge had in this case, finds by “clear and convincing evidence” that that party has committed perjury as “part of a pattern or scheme to defraud.” Ante at 600. In my view, the court unwisely goes beyond the necessity of this case, and makes troubling suggestions about where it may go in the future, when it states that “[dismissal or entry of a default judgment for fraud on the court has been warranted for creating and presenting false evidence in support of a claim or defense,” and then, by way of example, cites cases in which “offering false and misleading testimony” and “falsifying past deposition testimony” is said to have occurred. Ante at 599-600. In *602my view, in a jury case the question whether a party’s trial or deposition testimony is true or false ought to be for the jury, not the judge, to decide.