Court Opinion

ID: 9699039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:07:48.87949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:45.241345
License: Public Domain

Dethmers, C. J.
This appeal is from a circuit court order permitting defendant, administrator of decedent’s estate, to take the discovery deposition of plaintiff, an opposite party, without waiving plaintiff’s disqualification under the so-called dead man’s statute (CL 1948, §617.65 [Stat Ann §27.914]) to testify, at the trial, concerning the same subject matter.
Suit is for specific performance of an alleged oral agreement under which decedent was to leave all his property, upon his death, to plaintiff.
*112Plaintiff says the order is grossly unfair because it permits defendant to obtain all of the information relating to the transaction from plaintiff, use it against her, and yet prevent her, at the trial, from testifying on those matters in her own behalf. Plaintiff cites in support of this In re Renee, 159 Ohio St 37 (110 NE2d 795, 42 ALR2d 572). In that case the court held that, in an action brought by an executor, the defendant cannot be required to give testimony by way of deposition as to matters concerning which such defendant is prohibited from testifying on trial by reason of the provisions of the Ohio dead man’s statute (Ohio General Code, § 11495).  The decision was by a closely divided court. The Ohio statute, as distinguished from Michigan’s, prohibits the opposite party from testifying at all in the cause. The court referred to its earlier decision in Prince, Executrix, v. Abersold, 123 Ohio St 464 (175 NE 862), in which it was held that the taking of a deposition of the opposite party, which is not offered in evidence at the trial, does not waive the statutory inhibition against the testimony of the party whose deposition is so taken. On the basis of such statute and earlier holding, the majority of the court held that one who is thus disqualified to be a witness is not, under the language of the statute governing taking of depositions (Ohio General Code, § 11525),  one whose deposition can be taken. The court said:
“The necessary conclusion is that the capacity to be a witness and to testify must exist before the person’s deposition can be taken.”
This was because the statute in question provided for the taking of “the deposition of a witness.” That reasoning is inapplicable to Michigan Court Rule *113No 35, § 6(a) (1945),  providing for taking the testimony, by deposition or otherwise, “of any person.”
It is of interest to note, with respect to the holding in Prince, Executrix, v. Abersold, supra, to the effect that taking the deposition does not constitute a waiver at trial, that there is division of authority on this question. See annotations, 64 ALR 1148, 1165, 107 ALR 482, 491, and 159 ALR 411, 422. Our question here, however, is not whether a waiver at trial was worked by the earlier taking of a discovery deposition, but rather, whether the opposite party may he required to submit to such discovery without a waiver by the party seeking it of the disqualification under the dead man’s statute.
The purpose of the latter statute is stated in Farmers & Merchants Bank & Trust Co. v. Globe Indemnity Co., 264 Mich 395, 400, 401, as follows:
“The statute relied upon as originally enacted was designed to afford protection to estates against the knavery and perjury of dishonest claimants (Kimball v. Kimball, 16 Mich 211); fraud and injustice (Penny v. Croul, 87 Mich 15 [13 LRA 83]); protect the estate of deceased persons against claims which depended in whole or in part upon testimony of a party which could not be refuted by the testimony of deceased (McHugh v. Dowd’s Estate, 86 Mich 412); prevent a living party from obtaining an unequal advantage from his own testimony as to matters known only to himself and the deceased, and of which the deceased party could no longer speak (Wright v. Wilson, 17 Mich 192; Chambers v. Hill, 34 Mich 523); prevent fraud and false swearing whereby estates became unjustly depleted in cases where no one on the part of the estate except the deceased had knowledge of the facts necessary to refute the unjust claim attempted to be enforced against it.”
*114In Applebaum v. Wechsler, 350 Mich 636, 650, this Court said:
“Tbe purpose of modern pleading is to give the parties adequate notice of the issues they are to meet.  The pretrial conference is intended to narrow and simplify such issues, to consider the necessity of amendments to the pleadings, and, generally speaking, to assure that the issues raised may be expeditiously tried.*  Its purpose is to achieve rapid and efficient administration of justice by eliminating traps and surprises.”
As observed in Honigman’s Michigan Court Rules Annotated, 1959 Pocket Part, p 77, the rule for discovery represents an important extension of the concepts of pretrial practice and gives that procedure considerable impetus. Of its purpose, we said in Ewer v. Dietrich, 346 Mich 535, 541, 542:
“In Hallett v. Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., 298 Mich 582, 592, we stated the underlying principle of the discovery process in somewhat similar terms:
“ ‘Comparatively recent procedure for compelling discovery of the facts and circumstances of a controversy in advance of joining issue or in advance of trial is well established. * * * The recent trend and purpose of statutes and court rules is to provide accurate information in advance of trial as to the actual facts and circumstances of a controversy. We have already said such rules must be liberally construed. They should promote the discovery of the true facts and circumstances of a controversy, rather than aid in their concealment.’  * * *
“As we said in Vincent v. Van Blooys, 263 Mich 312, 314:
“ ‘Aside from its advantage to a party in discovering the opponent’s claim, the rule has a public pur*115pose which should he served in its interpretation, arising from reducing the time of the trial by narrowing the issues, obtaining admissions of fact, fixing the claims of the parties when the incidents are fresh in their minds, and otherwise fostering accuracy and celerity of trial, and also from inducing settlements, which are made more easy when the respective claims are known.’ ”
It is apparent that there is no conflict between the purposes, as above considered, of the dead man’s statute and the rule for discovery. Both are intended to aid in arrival at truth and justice in litigation. Invoking the one need not be treated as a waiver of the other. Enabling both parties to become fully conversant with all the facts involved in a matter and to avoid “traps and surprises” makes for enlightened administration of justice. Its achievement need not be paid for by sacrifice of the object or purpose of the dead man’s statute. There is no unfairness in permitting defendants and their counsel to know what plaintiff’s claims are and the foundation on which she bases them and, yet, at the same time, closing her mouth at trial as to matters equally within the knowledge of the deceased whose mouth has been closed by death.
Court Rule No 35, § 6, in providing for pretrial depositions and discovery, permits examination of the deponent only “regarding any matter, not privileged and admissible under the. rules of evidence governing trials, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action.” It is suggested that this limitation of the examination to matters admissible under the rules of evidence governing trials, denies to the protected party the right to examine the opposite party on discovery as to matters equally within the knowledge of the deceased concerning which the latter is prohibited by statute from testifying at trial. It will be noted, however, that, *116at least so far as matters not privileged are concerned, the limitation pertains not to the identity, qualifications, or competence of a witness but to the competency of the evidence and its relevance to the subject matter of the litigation. This limitation was intended to prevent fishing expeditions into areas unrelated to the cause of action, not to impede a party in discovering from any person, whether competent as a witness or not, all facts and information, not privileged, which are relevant to that cause of action. Indeed, it is the gaining of such information, from whatever source, that the rule was designed to facilitate.
Although Michigan Court Rule No 31, § 1 (1945), provides that when a deposition has been taken by either party it may be read by the other party on the trial, this Court held in Webb Coal Co. v. Bay City School District, 342 Mich 116, that that provision does not invalidate objections to the competency of evidence therein contained and that they may be raised for the first time on trial. See, also, in this connection, Angell v. Rosenbury, 12 Mich 241, and Bliss v. Paine, 11 Mich 92, as to answers to interrogatories under a commission. "We see no sound reason for holding otherwise concerning objections to the competency of a witness to give certain testimony under the mentioned statute. Court Rule No 35, § 6(d), provides that at the trial any part of a deposition may be used against any party present or represented at its taking “so far as admissible under the rules of evidence,” but section 6(e) thereof further provides that objection may be made at trial to receiving any deposition or part thereof “for any reason which would require the exclusion of the evidence if the witnesses were then present and testifying.” This includes the excludable evidence from an opposite party. Clearly, under these provisions of the rules, the party protected under the statute has lost no part *117of such protection at trial by the earlier taking of depositions on the matters equally within the knowledge of the deceased.
In Fox v. Barrett’s Estate, 117 Mich 162, the party protected under the statute sought to prove a part of a transaction by the opposite party’s own testimony at trial, and then to close his mouth as to the remainder. This Court declined to permit this. In In re Potter Estate, 351 Mich 326 (66 ALR2d 710), this Court refused to extend the protection of the statute to one not included within the class of litigants covered by its terms. The instant case does not involve such extension nor permission to the protected party to use part of the opposite party’s ex-cludable testimony on trial and to keep out the rest. Neither does the action of the trial court here constitute an expansion of the scope of the statute at a trial beyond what has heretofore obtained under the previous decisions of this Court. It merely gives needed effectiveness to pretrial and discovery proceedings to attain their intended purpose.
The sequel to our reasoning and holding that an opposite party may be required to submit to discovery without the protected party’s waiver of the disqualification under the statute, is that the right of a protected party to discovery and the trial court’s discretion in permitting it are in no wise to be affected by nor made dependent upon either the invoking or waiver of the protection of the statute. Court Buie No 35 contains no authorization for a court to compel parties, on pretrial or granting of discovery, to claim or waive the protection of the statute as is provided in section 6(b) thereof with respect to the physician-patient and hospital-patient privilege. Accordingly, there is no occasion to anticipate that the grant of discovery will produce a variance, in *118the several circuits, in its effects upon or the consequences of the dead man’s statute.
Affirmed, with costs to defendants.
Carr, Smith, and Edwards, JJ., concurred with Dethmers, C. J.