Court Opinion

ID: 9612378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:07:46.317313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:40.936307
License: Public Domain

Buchanan, J.,
dissenting.
In Independent Cab Association v. LaTouche, 197 Va. 367, 377, 89 S.E.2d 320, 327, we quoted with approval these statements in Burks Pleading and Practice, 4th ed., § 324, pp. 601, 602, 603:
“ * Applications for new trials [for after-discovered evidence] *42are addressed to the sound discretion of the court, and are based on the ground that there has not been a fair trial on the merits.’ ”
I do not question the further statement that a new trial for after-discovered evidence is granted with great reluctance and with special care and caution, and that in order to justify a new trial it must be shown that the after-discovered evidence could not have been discovered before the trial by the exercise of due diligence; but it should also be borne in mind, as quoted in LaTouche, that:
“ * The real object to be attained in granting a new trial is to prevent an erroneous judgment from becoming final. “Where in the light of after-discovered evidence, grave doubt is entertained as to the correctness of the verdict, and it seems probable that if the newly-discovered evidence had been before the jury a different verdict would have been reached on the merits, the verdict should be set aside.”**’ ”
Here it is more than probable, it is demonstrated, that if the newly-discovered evidence had been before the jury on the first trial a different verdict would have been reached on the merits.
Thomas Gravitt testified on the second trial that at the scene of the accident defendant said her baby fell off the seat and when she reached over to pick up the baby she pulled her truck over to the plaintiff’s side of the road. He stated in his affidavit, made after the first trial, that he did not know either of these ladies. He left the scene, he said, before the trooper or the ambulance arrived and he did not remember telling anybody about his being at the scene of the accident until plaintiff’s husband came to see him on Sunday night after the verdict on Saturday.
Plaintiff stated in her affidavit that she did not employ counsel until about a year after the accident; that she heard that the defendant had made the statement to somebody but she was unable to confirm this; and her counsel made affidavit that he investigated the report but was unable to find out to whom such statement had been made.
The court now holds that the plaintiff and her counsel did not use reasonable diligence to discover this new evidence prior to the first trial, and hence the court erred in setting aside the first verdict on’ that ground.
I think there is room for difference of opinion on that question. The trial judge, who heard the evidence twice, was convinced this after-discovered evidence was admissible and I would accept his decision about it.
*43I disagree more decidedly with the court’s conclusion that it is proper to dispose of plaintiff’s assignment of cross-error by merely adopting the trial court’s view about it. In my opinion, that view was wrong. The evidence offered by the plaintiff was that in a trial in the County Court on a warrant charging the defendant with failing to yield the right of way, the defendant entered a plea of guilty. The defendant denied that she did so, but the State trooper who investigated the accident testified, out of the presence of the jury, that he was present at the trial in the County Court and that the defendant did plead guilty to that charge. This evidence was admissible as an admission on the part of the defendant and was important evidence for the plaintiff in view of the plaintiff’s testimony as to how the accident happened and the testimony of the defendant that she did not remember anything about the accident and did not know how it happened.
The plaintiff was entitled to a fair trial and to place before the jury admissible evidence in support of her case. The rejection of this testimony was error sufficient, in my opinion, to require the verdict in the first trial to be set aside without the support of the after-discovered evidence.