Court Opinion

ID: 9829093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:59:12.719162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:57.176156
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
It was stated in the original opinion that the uncorroborated testimony of defendant Lemp, insofar as i-t was adverse to plaintiffs, “may be rejected, but not substituted.” The language may be inept and confusing, if not inaccurate. In this motion for rehearing plaintiffs construe it to mean that Lemp’s testimony may not be 'rebutted, by the testimony of others, which, of course, was not intended. The language was intended to express the idea that while the uncorroborated testimony of Lemp, a party defendant, may be rejected in toto, it may not be substituted by attributing to him testimony he did not give. We have modified the questioned phrase to meet plaintiffs’ objection.
Plaintiffs assume in their motion that this Court gave effect, as against them, to uncorroborated testimony of the defendant Lemp, and based affirmance thereon. In that, too, plaintiffs misunderstand the position of this Court. For, in the original opinion, this Court gave no effect, as against plaintiffs, to any uncorroborated testimony of Lemp. We simply set out his testimony, and held that it did not raise the issue of discovered peril. In truth, there is no conflict between the material testimony of Lemp and the other evidence in the case, most of which is found in the testimony of plaintiffs’ chief witness, Earl Hersh, a highway patrolman, who arrived at the scene shortly after the accident, and testified very clearly and at length from the physical facts disclosed at the time.
' Plaintiffs’ motion will be overruled.