Court Opinion

ID: 9448634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:41:41.836342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:30.685880
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
I am in accord with the result reached, namely, that there should be a new trial. In my opinion, however, it is not necessary or advisable to pass upon the admissibility of Gordon’s report in advance of a new trial but since the majority has chosen at this time to declare that the report is admissible, I feel constrained to set forth the reasons why I believe on the facts before us that the report is inadmissible under the provisions of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1732.
Not every paper is admissible in evidence merely because it is a printed form which contains space for the writing of answers to various printed categories or questions. This is an age of the printed *800form of which there must be tens of thousands in daily use by government and business. But the superimposition of printer’s ink upon a sheet of white paper does not thereby change a self-serving declaration into a regular-course-of-business report under § 1732. In other words, some analysis of the circumstances under which the report was prepared and its function and purpose must be made in order to determine whether it is admissible under fundamental rules of evidence. The Supreme Court in Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109, 63 S.Ct. 477, 87 L.Ed. 645 (1943) and this court in Puggioni v. Luckenbach S.S. Co., 2 Cir., 1961, 286 F.2d 340, and Central R. R. Co. of N. J. v. Sottnek, 2 Cir., 1958, 258 F.2d 85, cert. den. 359 U.S. 913, 79 S.Ct. 588, 3 L.Ed.2d 574, have definitely indicated that form is not to prevail over substance.
In Palmer v. Hoffman, supra, a report had been made by the engineer of the train causing the accident. The report was excluded on the trial. The Supreme Court affirmed the exclusion and in so doing stated certain principles applicable here. In that case, the railroad company sought to use its employee's report to exonerate it from liability; in this case, the government offers its employee’s report to establish liability. As to the report by the engineer, Mr. Justice Douglas said, “But the fact that a company makes a business out of recording its employees’ versions of their accidents does not put those statements in the class of records made ‘in the regular course' of the business within the meaning of the Act” (318 U.S. p. 113, 63 S.Ct. p. 480).
The argument which appellant advan-es and the majority accept, namely, that Gordon was charged by statute and regulation with making a report is completely answered by the Supreme Court in Palmer wherein the Court points out that where Congress has imposed the duty of making reports and has also said that such reports should not be “admitted as evidence or used for any purpose in any suit or action for damages growing out of any matter mentioned in said report or investigation” (45 U.S.C.A. § 41). “That legislation reveals an explicit Congressional policy to rule out reports of accidents which certainly have as great a claim to objectivity as the statement sought to be admitted on the present case” (318 U.S. p. 115, 63 S.Ct. p. 481).
In Puggioni, supra, this court said that “this circuit has construed Palmer v. Hoffman to give trial judges discretion to determine whether the circumstances surrounding accident reports made by others justify their acceptance in evidence” (286 F.2d p. 344) and in Sottnek said, “The trial judge must exercise caution to be sure that a document offered under this statute has an inherent probability of trustworthiness” (258 F.2d p. 88). These statements are quite inconsistent with the holding here that without giving to the trial judge the opportunity to pass upon the critical issue, the report untested by appropriate criteria shall be received in evidence.
What does analysis of the report reveal? Gordon was the chief steward of the vessel on which Garcia, the injured crew member, was a waiter and was Garcia’s immediate superior. It was Gordon’s duty to report that Garcia had been injured. Gordon was not an employee of the defendant and it was not part of his duties for the defendant or even for the government to investigate or to report upon the cause of the accident. Parenthetically, there is no factual basis for the assumption in the majority opinion that, “If this statutorily required report were prepared with an eye to litigation, it would have been in contemplation of a suit by Garcia against the Government.” The Government was not the owner of, or responsible for the condition of, the pier. The report was solely for the purpose of recording Garcia's injury. It was not to determine cause or fault. The majority immediately recognize this distinction by pointing out that a suit by Garcia against the Government “would have been on a claim for a statutorily fixed compensation *801award payable to him regardless of fault on the part of anyone” (emphasis supplied) and concedes that it “would have involved issues far different from those involved in the present action by the Government against the pier owner, based on a claim that the pier owner was negligent.” Thus, since the only purpose of the report was to record the fact that Garcia had been injured, there is no reason to believe that the report would be a particularly trustworthy account of immaterial facts (immaterial to the report) such as the presence of ice and snow on the pier.
There can be no doubt that the report, if prepared and submitted by Garcia to the government as a statement of claim for compensation for injuries, would have been inadmissible against the defendant if he had written therein that the cause of the accident was snow and ice which had been allowed to remain on the walk along the side of the pier. The report would have been clearly self-serving.
Gordon’s report, if sought to be introduced by plaintiff to establish liability because of the condition of the pier, would have been equally self-serving. However, the report could have been used when Gordon was on the stand to refresh his recollection. Thus, the error committed to the prejudice of plaintiff was the admission of the report followed by its exclusion after the trial was over. Once the report was received, plaintiff’s counsel was entitled to rely upon its receipt in evidence and to assume that it was available to him for all purposes, including reading and exhibiting it to the jury during trial and upon summation. For this reason, he may well have decided not to press Gordon further as to such personal knowledge, if any, he might have had concerning conditions on the stringpiece or to refrain from using the report to refresh his recollection. But just as plaintiff’s counsel was deprived of the opportunity to use the report, so also, by now holding the report to be admissible, is defendant’s counsel deprived of any opportunity to inquire into all the facts and circumstances which may well bear upon admissibility even under § 1732. Thus, I cannot agree that this court should in advance of a new trial hold the report to be admissible, and thus reach a result quite at variance with Sottnek and Puggioni.