Court Opinion

ID: 9868572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:41:49.989413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:51.645950
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Behear.
By petition to rehear it is argued that this court overlooked or failed to apply the exception to the general rule that testimony rejected on the trial must be preserved in the record in order that the court on appeal may determine whether or not reversible error has been committed in its rejection. This exception applies where witness being offered to prove a certain fact or facts is refused permission to testify, either because the witness is himself held to be incompetent to give testimony, as for instance when infamous, or because the matter proposed to be established by his testimony is beyond the scope of the pleadings, or otherwise irrelevant and immaterial; for 'example, if the court was of opinion that even if established it would have no effect upon the result of the case. This was the situation before the court in Railroad v. Hunton, 114 Tenn., 609, 88 S. W., 182, where this exception was applied. There the trial court refused in this condemnation case to permit witnesses to testify as to the prices at which other neighboring lots had been sold, the trial court apparently taking the view that the question of value could not thus be legally determined.
*17Counsel also rely on the holding in Ferguson v. State, 166 Tenn., 308, 61 S. W. (2d), 467, 468, wherein the exception to the general rale requiring rejected testimony to he put into the record was recognized and approved. In that case the sufficiency of a motion for a new trial was involved. This court held that the motion was good on its face and that the trial court erred in refusing to hear testimony offered in support of the motion. In response to the effort to invoke the rule that the testimony was not preserved, this court first found that the motion contained on its face the substance of the testimony which would be given by the witness tendered to the court “to show the truth of the'above statement.” The court declined to hear the witness, so that there was nothing more the counsel could do in observance of the rule requiring the proposed testimony to be preserved in the record. But, as already indicated, this court found that this rule was sufficiently complied with in that the substance of the proposed testimony appeared on the face of the motion. In the second place, the opinion called attention to the exception applied in the Hunton Case, supra, and thus re-stated this exception:
“An exception to this general rule is well recognized, appearing to have application to the case now before us, when on the trial the court excludes an entire line or character of testimony, declining to permit to be introduced, or to consider, any testimony directed toward a given issue, because not within the pleadings, or otherwise generally inadmissible. In such a situation, preservation and presentation to the appellate court of the details of the evidence offered is not required for obvious reasons. Assuming that the motion in question stated a legal ground of complaint and for relief, which we think must be granted, then the action of the trial *18judge in striking* it out and refusing* to consider it made it unnecessary, under the above exception, to incorporate and preserve the proposed testimony. With the grounds ■ — the foundation — stricken,. nothing was left on which to base evidence. Relief was denied defendant, not because his testimony would not sustain his .charge, but because, by analogy .to a demurrable- pleading, his charge was insufficient. ” •
In the instant case no witness and no testimony was excluded as incompetent, or because the proof proposed was beyond the pleadings “or otherwise generally inadmissible.” As remarked in our original opinion, the instant case is unlike the Conlee Case, Conlee v. Taylor, 153 Tenn., 507, 285 S. W., 35, 48 A. L. R., 940, in that there counsel asked to be allowed to put into the record the testimony of the witnesses which he offered, so that this court might on.appeal see just what this testimony would have been, in compliance with the general rule, and this was refused by the trial judge. The opinion in the Conlee Case emphasizes this point and holds that the rule would not, of course, be enforced under such conditions.
 Nothing of this kind was done or attempted in the instant case. Presumably counsel rely on the general statement addressed to the court at the conclusion of all •of defendant’s testimony, without calling the name of any witness, that “we have ten or twelve more witnesses along* the same line as this, who have just testified, ’ ’ etc. Not only was no witness called or named, but the number was left indefinite. And-■“along* the same line,” etc., is entirely too general and vague to present a showing to the trial court or to this court of what the witnesses would swear. It may be observed that the witnesses who had testified for the defendant had covered a wide range, *19including (1) the health of plaintiff before and after his employment and the extent of his alleged impairment; (2) the location of plaintiff’s place of work in defendant’s plant; (3) the health and physical condition and effects thereon of the fumes, of various other employees who gave testimony; (4) the construction of the plant audits equipment; (5) the existence and extent and effect of gas fumes; (6) the use of gas in the World War, as evidence of its ill effects; (7) testimony of doctors as medical experts as to the effects of gas fumes generally and on the plaintiff, a large number having been introduced; (8) the testimony of textile chemists, one of two ..of-whom were objected to as not qualified as experts, etc.; and (9) factory inspectors that testified as to their different examinations and findings.
The trial court could not have told, and this court can get no substantial information, from the general statement made by counsel as to what particular testimony defendant was deprived of by this alleged erroneous ruling of the trial judge, so as to be able to see and say whether or not defendant suffered prejudice— which after all is the ultimate test.
It thus appears that the facts of the instant case do not bring it within the rule announced in the Conlee Case and do not bring it within-the exception to the general rule announced in the Hunton Case and recognized hr the Ferguson Case.
There are other reasons that might have been assigned for declining to sustain the assignment of error in question, for example, the objection or exception came too late. The court had announced this ruling during the introduction of plaintiff’s proof, stating that he was going* to limit counsel on both sides as to the number of witnesses on one set of facts and indicating five as the *20number. No objection or exception was taken at that time by counsel on either side, and the court did enforce this ruling as to the plaintiff. Now it was not, as heretofore shown, until the close of all the testimony that counsel for the defendant made his objection in very informal manner to this limitation ruling. This general rule is laid down in 26 R. C. L., at page 1034:
“If a party desires to except to a limitation of the number of witnesses, he should do so when the limitation is announced, and not after he has examined the limited number of witnesses.”
Supporting cases are cited in the notes. And this rule of practice is obviously well based. Counsel should not be permitted as here to sit by and hear the court announce a ruling applicable to both sides and see it enforced as to the plaintiff and then at the conclusion of all the testimony interpose an exception.
For this and other reasons that might be noted, the petition to rehear must be dismissed.