Court Opinion

ID: 9703610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:01:55.840826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:50.516636
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RYAN, dissenting: I must dissent from the majority opinion because I find that the defendant’s objection to the relevancy of the habit and custom testimony offered was proper and sufficient to preserve for review the question as to the propriety of the admission of such testimony. Therefore, this court should have decided the merits of that question. On the merits I would find that the evidence of habit or custom was erroneously admitted and, for that reason, the verdict should be reversed. The opinion holds that habit testimony has been held by this court to be relevant. Therefore, according to the opinion, the defendant’s objection to the evidence on the grounds of relevancy was not well taken. Since no other objection to this evidence was stated, the opinion holds that the question of the admissibility of this evidence for any other reason was waived. Relevancy has been defined as the tendency of the evidence to establish a material proposition. (McCormick, Evidence sec. 185, at 435 (2d ed. 1972).) However, although, logically, certain evidence, in a sense, may tend to establish a certain fact, it may lack legal relevancy because of its slight probative value or the dangers that would accompany the reception of such evidence. (McCormick, Evidence sec. 185, at 438-41 (2d ed. 1972).) Legal relevancy denotes more than a minimum probative value. Generally, a higher degree of probative value is required of evidence submitted to juries than would be acceptable in ordinary reasoning. 1A Wigmore, Evidence sec. 28, at 969 (Tillers rev. ed. 1983). We need not become involved in the dichotomy of whether a distinction should or should not be maintained on the basis of the concept of “legal relevancy.” (See McCormick, Evidence sec. 185, at 440-41 (2d ed. 1972).) To be relevant, and thus admissible, habit or custom must be established to the degree that the desired inference may be drawn therefrom. In our case, evidence to establish habit did not conform to the accepted standards necessary to meet this relevancy test. That is, the habit or custom of not blowing the train’s whistle at the crossing in question was not established to the degree required to permit an inference to be drawn that the whistle was not blown at that crossing on the occasion of the accident involved in this case. Therefore, the defendant’s objection to this evidence on the basis of relevancy was valid and the question was preserved for review. We should, therefore, have considered the merits of the objection. On the merits, I would hold that the tendered evidence as to the habit of not sounding the train whistle at this crossing should not have been admitted. Such evidence was not relevant. By that I mean that the assertion by the witnesses as to the failure of trains to sound the whistles on previous occasions was not sufficient to establish a habit or pattern of behavior from which the jury could draw the necessary inference as to the defendant’s conduct on the occasion of the accident. The Model Code of Evidence defines habit as follows: “Habit means a course of behavior of a person regularly repeated in like circumstances.” (Model Code of Evidence Rule 307 (1942).) The Federal rules of evidence do not specifically define habit, but provide in Rule 406 that the habit of a person is relevant to prove that the conduct of the person on a particular occasion was in conformity with the habit. (Fed. R. Evid. 406.) The notes of the advisory committee on the proposed rules of evidence, commenting on Rule 406, however, refer to Professor McCormick’s distinction between habit and character wherein habit is defined as the person’s regular practice of meeting a particular kind of situation with a specific type of conduct. Fed. R. Evid. 406, Notes of Advisory Committee on Proposed Rules, 28 U.S.C.A., at 327 (1984); see also McCormick, Evidence sec. 195, at 462 (2d ed. 1972). In Wilson v. Volkswagen of America, Inc. (4th Cir. 1977), 561 F.2d 494, 511, the court stated that the requirement of proof of habit or pattern of conduct as established by the Federal rules of evidence and legal authorities in general are “somewhat strict.” Also, the court said: “It has been repeatedly stated that habit or pattern of conduct is never to be lightly established, and evidence of examples, for purpose of establishing such habit, is to be carefully scrutinized before admission. *** It is only when the examples offered to establish such pattern of conduct or habit are ‘numerous enough to base an inference of systematic conduct’ and to establish ‘one’s regular response to a repeated specific situation’ or *** where they are ‘sufficiently regular or the circumstances sufficiently similar to outweigh the danger *** of prejudice and confusion,’ that they are admissible to establish pattern or habit.” (Wilson v. Volkswagen of America, Inc. (4th Cir. 1977), 561 F.2d 494, 511.) See also Reyes v. Missouri Pacific R.R. Co. (5th Cir. 1979), 589 F.2d 791, 794-95; Lewan, The Rationale of Habit Evidence, 16 Syracuse L. Rev. 39 (1965). Not only was the evidence insufficient in our case to establish habit or custom so that the desired inference may be drawn, but also there is no evidence in this case to indicate that the person who was the engineer on the occasion of the accident had ever crossed that crossing before, or had ever failed to sound the whistle at that crossing or any other crossing. This was not a regular train on that line. It consisted of two engines, a caboose and a snowplow. It was not engaged in the usual operation of the railroad. It was plowing snow from the tracks. Even if the evidence in this case establishes that other engineers regularly neglected to sound the whistle at this crossing or other crossings, that pattern of conduct does not permit the inference that the engineer in this case, who was engaged in a special function, failed to sound the whistle. There was no evidence that any train engaged in a special operation such as plowing snow ever failed to sound its whistle at this crossing. It is true that evidence of custom of an organization to act or fail to act in a particular manner is admissible as tending to show that a member of that organization acted similarly in a similar situation. However, it is an accepted principle that “generalized descriptions of organizational tendencies have little probative value or, at least, that such generalized descriptions have substantially less probative value than more detailed descriptions showing particular types of repetitive tendencies toward care or carelessness that resemble the type of alleged carelessness forming the basis of the lawsuit at hand.” 1A Wigmore, Evidence sec. 97, at 1657 (Tillers rev. ed. 1983). Federal Rule of Evidence 406, which provides that evidence of habit of a person is admissible, also provides that the “routine practice of an organization” (emphasis added) is likewise admissible. (Fed. R. Evid. 406.) Thus, just as habit evidence of an individual, to be admissible, must disclose the regular practice of an individual in meeting a particular situation with a specific response, so also must evidence of the conduct of an organization establish such conduct to be the routine practice of the organization. The notes of the advisory committee on the proposed Federal rules state that equivalent behavior on the part of a group to habit of a person is designated “routine practice of an organization” in the rule. (Fed. R. Evid. 406, Notes of Advisory Committee on Proposed Rules, 28 U.S.C.A., at 327 (1984).) Professor McCormick states that custom of a business organization is admissible “if reasonably regular and uniform.” (McCormick, Evidence sec. 195, at 464 (2d ed. 1972).) The important point is, whether we consider habit evidence of an individual or custom evidence of an organization, the evidence must be sufficiently detailed and specific, and the situations involved must be similar enough to give rise to a reliable inference and not to speculation or conjecture. Permitting the jury to consider such evidence involves many dangers. It is only when such evidence' has sufficient probative value and is sufficiently reliable to outweigh these dangers that such evidence is admissible. As one author noted, “[I]f you are going to let a wild horse onto your property you had better know how to handle it properly.” Lewan, The Rationale of Habit Evidence, 16 Syracuse L. Rev. 39, 53 (1965). Again, I emphasize that the train in this case was not a regular train on that track, and it was not engaged in operations similar to those of the other trains which the witnesses testified had failed to sound their whistles on previous occasions. It is dangerous and extremely unfair to permit a jury to speculate that since certain other trains had failed to sound their warning whistles an unspecified number of times on unspecified occasions, this train, which was engaged in a different type of operation from the others, failed to sound its whistle on the occasion of the accident. What kind of trains were these others that failed to sound their whistles? Were they what are commonly called “locals” that pick up or deposit cars at the local grain elevators, or were they the long, through freight trains? As noted above, there was no evidence that any train engaged in a special type operation, such as plowing snow, ever failed to sound a warning whistle at this crossing. In this dissent I have addressed only the relevancy question. I have not considered the admissibility of the objected-to evidence on other grounds, such as the availability of eyewitnesses who could testify as to the sounding of the whistle.