Court Opinion

ID: 9531148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:08:04.193399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:21.416019
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in result.
I concur in the decision affirming the judgment of the trial court. I write separately, however, to voice my disagreement with Dodd v. Yanan (1992) 4th Dist. Ind.App., 587 N.E.2d 1348, even as modified by the majority opinion here.
The holding in Yanan, supra, was and, as here modified, is that where a party requests admissions from an adverse party pursuant to Ind.Trial Rule 36, the requesting party is, in effect, eliciting testimony from the adverse party, thereby waiving any objection to that party's competency under the Dead Man's Statute. This holding was appropriately criticized as follows:
"[The use of discovery under Rule 86 is not the same as calling the adverse party as a witness. It can be only in a distended metaphorical sense. Pretrial is not trial, just as oil is not water, and the effect of this kind of decision is to remove this kind of discovery in almost every case in which" the Dead Man's Statute is initially applicable." William F. Harvey, rules, rulings for the trial lawyer 86 Res Gestae 118 (1992).
As the majority correctly notes, however, and without regard to Yanan, Josephine did not waive the incompetency of the witnesses by resort to TR. 36.