Court Opinion

ID: 9517361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:14:52.50331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:59.651164
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring in result). Two questions posed by the defending cross-examiner caused all *497these trial and appellate misadventures. 1 The dual questions, and the direct examiner’s response which led to the summary hearing at chambers, follow:
“Q. Now, when you entered the hospital, you were asked a number of questions by the personnel of the hospital, were you not?
“A. Yes, yes.
“Q. And in answer to the questions, did you explain to the hospital attendants that you had suffered from chronic back pains ever since you were a child, and that this pain radiated up and down your spine?
“Mr. Abram: All right. Okay, your Honor. Iam going to ask that the jury be excused. I’m sorry.”
Then came the at-chambers motion by plaintiffs’ counsel for an order of mistrial, and the rather abrupt and admonitory proceedings Justice Brennan has recorded. The appellate difficulty is that the record fails to disclose that counsel asked leave to make, either a separate record of whatever cross-examination he had in mind or an offer of proof. And it fails to disclose any objection to the trial judge’s manifestly arbitrary take-over of whatever cross-interrogation of the witness-plaintiff as was then rightly due, after the judge told her what to say.
Beturning now to the courtroom, when the jury was present and the quoted questions were put to the witness-plaintiff: If as alleged the cross-examiner had in flourishing hand some document he proposed to employ, his second question was quite out of order. The record does not disclose that the document in hand had been marked for identification. It fails to show that the document had been *498signed or otherwise attested by the witness.2 It fails to reveal that the document had been shown to the witness, prior to the two beginning questions, and fails to inform that counsel was aiming other than at the making up of a foundation for the introduction of impeaching testimony (by some hospital attendant or attendants).
First: We should not forget that the rule laid down in People v. Dellabonda (1933), 265 Mich 486, 508, is still the law; also that it appears high time that a few counsel and perhaps a few trial judges be apprised of that fact. The rule (Dellabonda at 508):
“This court is firmly committed to the doctrine of Queen’s Case [1820], 2 Brod. & Bing. 284, 286 (129 Eng. Repr. 976), which case is the basis of the rule stated in 1 Greenleaf on Evidence (16th Ed.), § 463, that it would be unfair to cross-examine a witness as to the contents of a writing made by him until the jury were informed of the precise contents of the writing, and thus warned against assuming contradictions that do not really exist and which would also be unfair to the witness because he may have explanations which would not occur to him until his memory had been refreshed by hearing the paper read. Lightfoot v. People [1868], 16 Mich. 507; Hamilton v. People [1874], 29 Mich. 195; Toohey v. Plummer [1888], 69 Mich. 345; DeMay v. Roberts [1881], 46 Mich. 160 (41 Am. Rep. 154).”
Second: As suggested above, counsel’s second question was objectionable for another reason. The question failed to comply or hint at beginning com*499pliance with that rule which, as far back as 1875, was laid down in De Armond v. Neasmith, 32 Mich 231, 232 and expounded later sua sponte in Rice v. Rice (1895), 104 Mich 371. To quote Rice at 378, 379:
“In view of a new trial, we deem it proper to remark that the proper method of impeachment by proving contradictory statements was not pursued in this case. Time, place, and person must be fixed by the impeaching question. The language which it is claimed the witness used must be given, and he asked if he used it. The same question, so far as the language is concerned, must then be asked of the impeaching witness. De Armond v. Neasmith [1875], 32 Mich. 231. In this case Mrs. Owens was asked to state the conversation she had with Mrs. Rice at the time and place fixed in the impeaching question. As already shown, she introduced other matter, about which no inquiry had been made of Mrs. Rice. In De Armond v. Neasmith it is said:
“ ‘When an attempt is made to impeach a witness, there should be no reasonable doubt but that the questions asked the impeaching witness and the witness sought to be impeached are one and the same. It is so easy for witnesses to misunderstand each other, or to forget what was really said, that there should be no chance for dispute in this respect. Fairness to both requires this.’
“The unfairness of the opposite course is well illustrated in this case. It is fair to remark that no objection to the course pursued was made.”3
I would reverse and remand for entry of judgment affirming the judgment of the trial court, and for an award of costs to plaintiff.
*500Although it will amount to mere dicta supported by but one Justice, I too “deem it proper to remark” a bit concerning this at-chambers hearing.
It may be that counsel was intimidated by the trial judge, and thus prevented from making a record of his complaints for possible review thereof. Such at least was the conveyed sense of his oral argument, in response to questions presented from the bench. Accepting the fact as alleged for discussional purposes, it was nonetheless the duty of counsel to insist courteously on his absolute right to make in our courts of record whatever record he conceives necessary to protect the rights of his client and, if that should be denied, then to make the desired record by putting it in writing and, having attested it with the effect provided by G-CR 1963, 114.2, by filing it (or tendering it for filing) in the clerk’s office as a part of the court’s record of the action in trial. That was not done here, hence this reluctant vote to reverse and remand.
T. Gr. Kavanagh, J., did not sit in this case.

 See the opinion of Division 2 (16 Mich App 219), bolding that defense counsel was unduly restricted in Ms right of cross-examination. I find that no such question was raised and saved for review.

 See Justice Cooley, writing in the Van Steinburg case (1868) 17 Mich 99, 108, 109:
“The circuit judge, I think, was right in ruling out the question put to the plaintiff, on cross-examination, as to what he knew about a statement of some sort, which counsel held in his hand, and which was in no manner brought home, either to the plaintiff, or to anybody else.”

 For former Attorney General and later Justice Potter’s detail of this rule, see Potter, Michigan Evidence Civil and Criminal (1920), § 318, “Laying the Foundation for Proof of Inconsistent Statements.”, pp 528-530.