Court Opinion

ID: 9446994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:23:02.538868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:51.868664
License: Public Domain

MAGItUDER, Circuit Judge (Retired)
(concurring).
I agree that the appeal must prevail, but I am constrained to reach that conclusion by a process of reasoning apparently different from that on which the majority opinion proceeds.
The distinction between substance and procedure, necessary to be made in applying the doctrine of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 1938, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, often presents a difficult problem. In my dissenting memorandum in Metropolitan Coal Co., Inc. v. *388Johnson, 1 Cir., 1959, 265 F.2d 173, 182, I said I wanted to keep open until I had to decide it the question whether a federal court, despite Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, “applying the state-created rules of substantive law, should determine the issue of negligence in accordance with its historic division of functions as between judge and jury, without looking over its shoulder to speculate whether a state court, on these same facts, would direct a verdict for the defendant.” Though there is some puzzling language in Stoner v. New York Life Insurance Co., 1940, 311 U.S. 464, 61 S.Ct. 336, 85 L.Ed. 284, I do not think the Supreme Court meant to decide that question. The Stoner case is usually cited for the proposition that, where there is no controlling decision in the highest court of a state, a federal court must ordinarily accept propositions of state law as declared in the lower courts of the state. See The Federal Courts and the Federal System, Hart & Wechsler 628 (1953). Perhaps that is all the Stoner case meant to decide. In addition, it may be noted that that case had to do with the application of the doctrine of res judicata, which certainly is a matter of substantive law. At all events, in the earlier case of Herron v. Southern Pacific Co., 1931, 283 U.S. 91, 51 S.Ct. 383, 75 L.Ed. 857, it was held that the distribution of functions between judge and jury was a matter governed by the Seventh Amendment concept of trial by jury, and could not be affected in the federal courts, even in a diversity case, by a state constitutional provision denying the right to take from the jury the issue of contributory negligence. It is clear from Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., 1958, 356 U.S. 525, 540 note 15, 78 S.Ct. 893, 2 L.Ed.2d 953, that the Herron case is still good law, despite anything that was said in, or might be implied from, Stoner v. New York Life Insurance Co. The case at bar involves not the direction of a verdict by the court, but rather the giving of a summary judgment which, under Rule 56(c), F.R.Civ.P. 28 U.S.C. is mandatory if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and * * * the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” But I can see no real difference between the criteria for determining when a summary judgment is required and when a case should be taken from the jury by a directed verdict that casts any light on the extent to which a question of federal law is posed. See Woods v. Interstate Realty Co., 1949, 337 U.S. 535, 69 S.Ct. 1235, 93 L.Ed. 1524. See also Gorham v. Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Ass’n, 4 Cir., 1940, 114 F.2d 97, 99, certiorari denied 1941, 312 U.S. 688, 61 S.Ct. 615, 85 L.Ed. 1125; Diederich v. American News Co., 10 Cir., 1942, 128 F.2d 144; McSweeney v. Prudential Insurance Co. of America, 4 Cir., 1942, 128 F.2d 660, 664, certiorari denied 1942, 317 U.S. 658, 63 S.Ct. 57, 87 L.Ed. 529; Lowry v. Seaboard Airline R. Co., 5 Cir., 1948, 171 F.2d 625, 630. Also, see a Note in 66 Harv.L.Rev. 1523-1525 (1953).
However, it seems to me that the majority opinion in the present case is proceeding upon an implicit assumption, without benefit of argument of counsel, that, whenever a state court would send a case to the jury, a federal court in diversity cases must do likewise.
I think that there is a much clearer way to reach the conclusion that the district judge committed error in granting a summary judgment under Rule 56(c). No doubt, as a matter of the substantive law of Massachusetts, the plaintiff’s intestate could make a valid contract exempting the Ford Motor Company from liability for injuries resulting from negligence of its agents or employees. Barrett v. Conragan, 1938, 302 Mass. 33, 34, 18 N.E.2d 369. It is also the settled substantive law of Massachusetts that such a contract is voidable “if obtained by a fraudulent misrepresentation as to its contents, in circumstances where the party signing it did so without reading it, relying on that misrepresentation.” King v. Motor Mart Garage Co., 1957, 336 Mass. 422, 426, 146 N.E.2d 365, 367. Thus I take it to be clear that a plaintiff can avoid the effect of a contract pur*389porting to exempt the defendant from liability if the following four elements are established: (1) that the defendant’s agent made a material statement as to the nature and effect of signing the waiver, (2) that the statement was false, (3) that it was made for the purpose of inducing the other party to sign the waiver, and (4) that it did in fact so induce the signing of the waiver. The affidavits submitted in the present case indicate that, if it should go to trial, evidence would be introduced on which the trier of fact might find all four of these elements for avoidance of the exemption contract. Certainly it could be found that the guard had made a material and false statement as to the document submitted for signature, in that the statement was misleading because it was only a partial truth, as the guard must have known.
It would also be reasonable to infer from the circumstantial evidence that the false statement was made with the purpose of inducing the intestate to sign the document and that the intestate did sign it in reliance upon the false representation. These two matters concern the state of mind of the guard and the state of mind of the intestate; and a person’s state of mind must almost necessarily be proved by circumstantial evidence. Moreover, the plaintiff’s counsel states in his affidavit “that in signing it he [the intestate] relied on the guard’s statement that it was a pass.” By the terms of Mass.G.L. (Ter.Ed.1932) c. 233, § 65, as amended, this “declaration of a deceased person shall not be inadmissible in evidence as hearsay * * * if the court finds that it was made in good faith and upon the personal knowledge of the declarant.” Therefore the attorney may testify as to what the intestate had told him as to the latter’s state of mind when signing the waiver. See American Railway Express Co. v. Rowe, 1 Cir., 1926, 14 F.2d 269, certiorari denied 1927, 273 U.S. 743, 47 S.Ct. 336, 71 L.Ed. 869. Of course, the court must make the required findings as stated in the Massachusetts statute. The district court did not on this motion for summary judgment purport to rule adversely on the admissibility of the attorney’s proposed testimony ; there was not before it any evidence which would enable it to decide that question. Since there were genuine issues of fact to be resolved by the jury, it was error in the trial court to give a summary judgment under Rule 56(c).