Court Opinion

ID: 9699847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:53:40.168194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:58.544387
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge,
concurring:
I join in Judge Cercone’s well-reasoned opinion. I write separately to propose that Pennsylvania recognize a hearsay exception for learned treatises.
It is time that Pennsylvania join the many other jurisdictions that permit a hearsay exception. The Federal Rules also provide for the exception:
To the extent called to the attention of an expert witness upon cross-examination or relied upon by him in direct examination, statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets on a subject of history, medicine, or other science or art, established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness or by other expert testimony or by judicial notice. If admitted, the statements may be read into evidence but may not be received as exhibits.
Fed.R.Evid. 803(18).
The adoption of such an exception,
would not be as great a change as might at first be supposed because much of the testimony of experts consists of information they have obtained from such sources. Also, admitting the sources would greatly improve the quality of information presented to trial courts in litigated cases. Wigmore concluded that there were sufficient assurances of *88trustworthiness to justify equating a learned treatise with the live testimony of an expert. First, authors of treatises have no bias in any particular case. Second, they are acutely aware that their material will be read and evaluated by others in their field, and accordingly there is strong pressure to be accurate.
2 John W. Strong et al, McCormick on Evidence § 321 (1992).