Court Opinion

ID: 9653395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:45:56.143159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:58.623392
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I think it well to indicate my understanding that the ruling here as to the admissibility of the broker’s letter, relying as that ruling does in part on the New York “course of business” statute, does not involve a repudiation of Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109, 63 S.Ct. 477, 87 L.Ed. 645, 144 A.L.R. 719, affirming our ruling in Hoffman v. Palmer, 2 Cir., 129 F.2d 976. In that case, an employee’s statement, offered in evidence on behalf of (not against) his employer, was held inadmissible under the similarly worded federal statute, because the alleged “course of business” was such as obviously to make for (not against) untrustworthiness.2 See Buckminster’s Es*470tate v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 147 F.2d 331, 334. As suggested in our opinion in the Palmer case, the New York courts would probably be no more latitudinarian in their interpretation of the New York legislation.
No sensible person can doubt that the hearsay rule seriously impedes the achievement of a major purpose of any sensible trial procedure, that of having the trial court come as close as possible to the actual facts of a case.3 It would therefore be highly desirable if the rule were abandoned in jury-less cases and if, in jury eases, it went no further than to give the trial judge discretion to exclude hearsay when he thinks the jury cannot intelligently handle it.4 But so deeply is that rule embedded in our traditions that I think courts should not thus virtually abolish it without legislative authorization.
Nevertheless, moderate judicial modifications of the rule seem to be justified by Supreme Court decisions. It is fair to assume, too, that the New York courts, within modest limits, would, as we do here, extend their statutes by analogy. Cardozo, J,, spoke of a “legislative policy which is itself a source of law, a new generative impulse transmitted to the legal system.” Van Beeck v. Sabine Towing Co., 300 U.S. 342, 351, 57 S.Ct. 452, 456, 81 L.Ed. 685. No matter what may be its early history,5 something like the doctrine of the “equity of a statute” (i.e., the doctrine that the courts should somewhat liberally apply the policy expressed in legislation to meet the “mischief” at which it aims) has been given considerable vitality in recent years.6

 The employer required every employee, involved in an accident,, promptly to make a written statement as to the accident; patently the statements were to aid the employer if litigation ensued, and were highly likely to be biased in favor of the employer.

 The ascertainment of the facts of a case is difficult enough without such impediments: As the actual “objective” facts are past events, the trial court can seldom be entirely sure of accurately knowing them; since the facts, for purposes of a court’s decision, consist of the belief of the trial judge or jury about those past events, the facts are “subjective” not “objective.” See In the Matter of Fried, 2 Cir., 161 F.2d 453.
That even Supreme Court Justices, when completely agreeing on the pertinent legal rule, may, when considering the evidence without any previous finding by a lower court, sharply disagree about the facts (i. e., the inferences to be drawn from conflicting testimony), see United States v. Shipp, 214 U.S. 386, 29 S.Ct. 637, 53 L.Ed. 1041.

 See A. L. I. Code of Evidence.
There may be a question whether such a proposed rule would nor, in criminal cases, sometimes transgress the constitutional requirement of confrontation, in which event, to that extent, the modified rule would perhaps be unconstitutional.

 For differing views about this history, see, e. g., Thorne's introduction to A Discourse Upon the Statutes (1942); Radin, Early Statutory Interpretation in England, 37 Ill.L.R. (1943) 16; Landis, Statutes and The Sources of Law, in Harvard Legal Essays (1934) 213; De SIoovere, The Equity and Reason of a Statute, 21 Corn.L.Q. (1936) 591; Goebel, Cases and Materials on The Development of Legal Institutions (1937) 747, 748; Davies, The Interpretation of Statutes, 35 Col.L.R. (1935) 518; cf. Stone, The Common Law in the United States, 50 Harv.L.R. (1936) 4, 13, 14.

 Gooch v. Oregon Short Line R. Co., 258 U.S. 22, 24, 42 S.Ct. 192, 66 L.Ed. 448; Johnson v. United States, 1 Cir., 163 F. 30, 32, 18 L.R.A.,N.S., 1194; United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.S. 219, 235, 61 S.Ct. 463, 85 L.Ed. 788; South & Central American Commercial Co. v. Panama R. R. Co., 237 N.Y. 287, 291, 142 N.E. 666; Paul, Estate and Gift Taxation (1942) §§ 1.08 and 1.12.
A similar recent development in England is noted by Friedman, Legal Theory (1944) 259-262, citing Plowden’s comments on Eyston v. Studd (1574), 2 Plowden 459, 468 (75 Eng.Rep. 688, 699). He regards this development as, in effect, a revival of the doctrine of the “equity of a statute”; see Book Review, 59 Harv.L.R. (1946) 1*004, 1006.