Court Opinion

ID: 9744536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:05:28.988823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:59.929486
License: Public Domain

KAUS, P. J.
Dissenting. I agree that defendants were entitled to a witness fee and mileage for the eighth day and I also agree that the trial court properly struck the item for expenses incurred with respect to the photographs. I do not agree that defendants were entitled to more than one witness fee for any day when their expert was in court, although he may have attended as a witness on behalf of more than one party.
Witness fees are allowed for attending court, not for testifying. (Gov. Code, § 68093; Prichard v. Southern Pac. Co., 9 Cal.App.2d 701, 706 [51 P.2d 426]; Starmont v. Cummins, 120 Mich. 629 [79 N.W. 897]; Healy v. Hillsborough County, 70 N.H. 588 [49 A. 89]; 97 C.J.S. p. 421.)
Whether the expert witness manifested himself to the court in 28, 15 or 13 capacities, he was there only once and entitled to but one fee. The statement in Justice Stephens’ opinion that no defendant other than the one who subpoenas the witness could have called him without obligating himself to an additional fee is quite unsupported by authority1 and disregards the purpose for which the fee is paid; yet even if the witness is entitled to multiple fees for being in the courtroom just once, I can see no justification for allowing him more than one allowance for mileage. At the very least he should be forced to form a car pool with himself.
Justice Aiso’s concurring opinion is based on the declaration in support of the cost bill to the effect that each defendant obligated himself to the witness. If that is what they did, elementary contract law tells us that there was no consideration for such promise, since the witness was already bound to *574attend, once he had been subpoenaed by one defendant. (1 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (7th ed. 1960) Contracts, § 80.)
I suspect that the result reached by the two majority opinions is based on a desire to ameliorate the harsh and possibly unconstitutional rule of City of Los Angeles v. Vickers, 81 Cal.App. 737 [254 P. 687], to the effect that the condemnee must pay the costs of expert testimony out of his own pocket. (See also People v. Bowman, 173 Cal.App.2d 416, 418 [343 P.2d 267].) Defendants do not attack that rule as such, but seek to get around it by a fiction. If the Vickers rule is to be reexamined (cf. Heimann v. City of Los Angeles, 30 Cal.2d 746, 753 [185 P.2d 597]; City & County of San Francisco v. Collins, 98 Cal. 259, 262 [33 P. 56]) it should be done openly.

In fact the only case I have found on the point is the other way. (Vilsack v. General Commercial Securities Corp., 106 Fla. 296 [143 So. 250].)