Court Opinion

ID: 9794492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:07:02.690242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:16:55.138118
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Vice Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I feel compelled to register my disapproval of the decision in this case.
On November 17, 1961, this Court, under the authority of the Constitutional Amendment of 1960, Article 6, § S, promulgated Uniform Rules of Practice for the Superior Court of Arizona. Last year in the spring of 1964, the Court indicated its interest in their amendment in those areas where experience demonstrated a need for change. The State Bar Association Standing Committee on the Rules for Practice and Procedure appeared before the Court and recommended certain modifications. These recommendations were in part disapproved by minority members of the committee who also appeared and presented their views.
In October, after extensive consideration of the suggested modifications, the Court publicized a proposed tentative draft of modifications, requesting comment from those interested. The proposed draft did not prohibit the disclosure at pre-trial con*94ference of evidence which might be used solely for impeachment purposes. In response, communications were received by the Chief Justice, members of the Court and the Court Administrator. The reaction of some members of the Bar was that the rules should specifically provide that impeachment evidence would not be required to be disclosed.1
On the 31st of December, 1964, effective March 8, 1965, the members of this Court, after discussion in which the question of disclosure of impeachment evidence was considered at length, adopted an order amending the Uniform Rules of Practice. Rule VI relative to pre-trial conference was extensively amended. The italicized portion of Rule VI(b) was added:
“Each attorney who will actually try the case shall attend the pretrial conference and there produce all exhibits * * *. Counsel shall not offer any other exhibits at the trial, except when offered for impeachment purposes * * (Emphasis supplied.)
The same is true as to Rule VI(f) (6) (üi) :
" * * * [C]ounsel shall not offer any exhibits at the trial, other than those listed in (ii) above, except when offered for impeachment purposes * *.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The majority state:
“It would be absurd to require that an exhibit be produced at pre-trial but not on interrogatory, or on production of documents and likewise it would be absurd to require a display at the beginning of the discovery procedure if it were not to be required at the end.”
It is indeed absurd to require discovery on interrogatories if it is not required later at pre-trial. I do not think this Court should *95fluctuate willy-nilly, blowing hot and cold from moment to moment and day to day. Consistency has some virtue. The Court having charted a course, it should be adhered to until a reasonably satisfactory trial has demonstrated a need for change.
I am further in disagreement with the decision on the merits. There are cases that can be construed both for and against the discovery of impeachment evidence. Their examination leaves the issue inconclusive so that in the end the controversy must be determined as a policy decision and practical considerations should be the guideline. For a similar reason the Supreme Court of the United States adopted the “work product” exception to discovery in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451. There the Court said that proper preparation of a client’s case demands that he assemble information and plan his strategy without undue and needless interference; and, “That is the historical and necessary way in which lawyers act within the framework of our system of jurisprudence to promote justice and to protect their clients’ interests.” 329 U. S. 495, 511, 67 S.Ct. 385, 393.
Within the past three or four decades a very substantial area of litigation arising out of the automobile negligence case has developed. It has given rise to special problems. Every lawyer is aware that there are plaintiffs who commit deliberate perjury in exaggeration of the extent of their injuries. There are also a great many more who unconsciously magnify their disabilities. The best defense, and perhaps the only one since the sympathies of the jury are with the injured, is to conduct a thorough investigation into the claimed injuries as a possible basis for the refutation of those claims. The investigation may be in whole or in part under the direction of the attorney for the defendant and the decision is his and his alone as to when and under what circumstance it is to be used.
It should be emphasized that there is here sought to be discovered one particular category of facts; that is, what the defendant or his agents know about the plaintiff’s injuries by reason of investigation or surveillance. The opinion in this case should be concerned with nothing more. It should not be broadened to include all areas of potential impeachment, each of which may present particular problems requiring a case-to-case determination.
The category of surveillance evidence, which is the only issue before the Court, has two obvious attributes: First, it pertains to facts which come into existence after an accident occurs. As such, it has nothing to do with the merits of the plaintiffs right of action. Second, it almost invariably concerns facts which are better known to the plaintiff than to the defendant, facts which in all fairness should be known equally to both parties but which, because of their nature, often are impos*96sible for the defendant to discover with certainty. It is, therefore, a fertile field for fraud and magnification, and a field in which the parties are not on even terms. Because of the strong public policy against perjury and because the parties are often not on even terms in the presentation of evidence of the exact extent of a plaintiff’s injuries, a defendant should not be required to disclose the results of his surveillance.2
This does not mean that there is embraced a “sporting theory” of litigation for nothing is hidden from the plaintiff which he does not already know. Rather, I call it “sporting” to take from a defendant the ability to surprise a dishonest witness thereby leaving the cause vulnerable to perjury. As has been aptly said, “An honest witness cannot be discredited and a dishonest one ought to be.”
The majority treat this factual situation which arises out of an application under Rule 33 as also involving Rule 34. A distinction should be observed. Rule 33 is addressed to the adverse party. Rule 34 provides that a party may inspect or copy documents, papers, books and other tangible things when good cause is shown. The majority, by treating the two rules as one, has in effect held that there is always good cause to disclose impeachment evidence. I disagree.
It is my opinion that justice can be best served by requiring a defendant to disclose under Rule 33 whether there has been a surveillance or an investigation. Then, but only if a good cause can be shown why it would be unfair to a plaintiff to withhold the results of surveillance reports and photographs, would I permit a party to invoke Rule 34. Good cause should not be considered as established on the simple proposition that the plaintiff does not know what the results of the defendant’s surveillance might show for realistically the reason can be but to discover how well adverse counsel has prepared its case on a matter which is already better known to the plaintiff than the defendant. There the matter should be left to the sound discretion of the trial judge.
For the foregoing reasons I dissent.

. For example, the Honorable Robert O. Lesher, a former Justice of this Court, wrote to Chief Justice Jesse Udall on November 19, 1964, in part, as follows:
“Second, on Page Bight you propose to amend Rule VI (A) by adding a subdivision (5). I have discussed this with my partners and with other members of the trial bar here, and I think that I reflect a rather widespread sentiment in violently objecting to this proposed subdivision of the rule. * * * Fraud in personal injury cases is now so widespread as no longer even to surprise us. The exaggeration of injuries, not to say the outright manufacturing of them is commonplace. The only defense we have now against the constant perjury by plaintiffs in personal injury cases as to the nature and extent of their disabilities is the right to make secret and undercover photographic and other investigation of these people. There is no lawyer in this branch of the profession that is not fully aware of the number of occasions on which such investigation alone has prevented the grossest miscarriage of justice, based on outright perjury by alleged injured plaintiffs. To require that I tell the plaintiff everything that I have done to protect myself against his perjury on the witness stand is to rob my defendant of what is often his best and only defense to the claim.”

. The argument is made that not to disclose leaves the plaintiff open to manufactured or perjured testimony from the defendant’s witnesses. I think this is highly unrealistic and implausible. I, personally, know of no instance in thirty years as an attorney in which it has been asserted that a defendant manufactured surveillance evidence. When this becomes a threat to the due administration of justice, then it should be considered whether an automatic disclosure is to be required.