Court Opinion

ID: 9639417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:16:58.09088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:17.911033
License: Public Domain

SWAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority opinion states that the court would, if free to consider the question independently, affirm the judgment. 1 do not think the New York eases preclude us from doing so. It is true that the opinion in Chaika v. Vandenberg, 252 N. Y. 101, 104, 169 N. E. 103, stales that the presumption remains unrebutted if the trier of the fact re*966jects the defendant’s denial, but I do not read the opinion as announcing any departure from the court’s previous rulings as to the disappearance of a presumption when the defendant offers “substantial” evidence to the contrary (Potts v. Pardee, 220 N. Y. 431, 433, 116 N. E. 78, 8 A. L. R. 785; Rose v. Balfe, 223 N. Y. 481, 486, 119 N. E. 842, Ann. Cas. 1918D, 238; Der Ohannessian v. Elliott, 233 N. Y. 326, 135 N. E. 518); 'nor as asserting that .the testimony of interested witnesses is necessarily insufficient to justify a directed verdict. Suppose-six members of the owner’s household should testify to the owner’s refusal of consent, with nothing to cast doubt on their story, must the case be left to the jury because of the possibility that it might find that all had committed perjury? I do not think the New York rule would so require. See Hull v. Littauer, 162 N. Y. 569, 57 N. E. 102. Believing that we are free to decide the present ease according to our own views of the effect of the presumption, I think the judgment should be affirmed.