Court Opinion

ID: 9636234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:20:41.454164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:47.899261
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
Appellees vigorously insist, in their petition for rehearing, that any error in the cross-examination of Briggs is harmless, because another witness testified as to his duties, without contradiction.
If that had been all to which Briggs testified, the point would be well taken. A reading of the record left the impression with a majority of this court that Briggs admitted that he was driving the car at the time of the accident. One such statement of Briggs was pointed out in the opinion; there are other similar statements in the record. If members of this court gained that impression from a reading of the record, members of the jury doubtless gathered the same impression from a reading of the deposition.
Counsel assures us that he did not intentionally elicit these answers from the witness, as he desired to stay away from that pivotal point. We accept his statement. The fact remains that the answers were made in the course of a cross-examination that was in direct violation of the rules of evidence. Intentionally or not, counsel availed himself of the benefit of such testimony.
We have no quarrel with the contention, ably presented, that the cross-examiner may offer the whole of a deposition, or the cross-examination, if the proponent of the witness does not. We differ with his contention that a cross-examination, improper at the time, and inadmissible if the proponent offers the deposition, is proper and admissible if, perchance, the cross-examiner offers it first. If this contention is sound, then a cross-examiner need pay no heed to the rules of evidence when a deposition is taken, for any transgression may be cured by the simple device of offering the deposition as his own.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
COTTERAL, Circuit Judge, dissents.