Court Opinion

ID: 9747698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:28:15.582454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:25.688338
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
During appellant’s trial for rape the medical records librarian of the Philadelphia General Hospital was permitted over appellant’s objection to testify that the hospital records showed that an examination of the prosecutrix had disclosed an abrasion on the left hand, no evidence of trauma to the neck, head, or extremities, and spermatozoa in the vagina. Appellant’s objection was that the testimony was hearsay. In denying the objection, the lower court and the majority of this court say that the testimony was nevertheless admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule.
I
In deciding whether an entry in a hospital record is admissible under the business records exception, a distinction must be drawn between an entry that records a fact and an entry that records an opinion. As the law now stands in Pennsylvania, an entry of fact is admissible, but an entry of opinion, at least in a criminal case, is not. Thus in Commonwealth v. Mobley, 450 Pa. 431, 301 A.2d 622 (1973), entries in records offered to show that on certain dates the defendant had been admitted to the hospital and had been treated were held admissible as entries of fact. The Supreme Court noted that although *512the records included entries of medical opinion, “[t]he records were offered not to show medical opinion, but for the legitimate purpose of establishing the fact of hospitalization and the treatment given.” Id. at 436, 301 A.2d at 624. Similarly, in Platt v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 261 Pa. 652, 66 A.2d 266 (1949), hospital records were held admissible to show that the plaintiff’s decedent had been admitted to the hospital and had expectorated about a cupful of blood. In contrast, in Commonwealth v. McCloud, 457 Pa. 310, 322 A.2d 653 (1973), it was held that the trial court should not have admitted an "entry of the medical examiner’s opinion regarding the cause of death.
In McCloud the Supreme Court relied on constitutional grounds. Since the charge was murder, causation as an element of the crime had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. To admit the entry of the medical examiner’s opinion regarding causation would, the Court said, deny the defendant his right of confrontation. Other cases, however, which do not involve the right of confrontation because the proponent of the evidence was not the Commonwealth but the defendant, hold that an entry of opinion is inadmissible because it is not a “record of an act, condition, or event” within the Uniform Business Records as Evidence Act, Act of May 4, 1939, P.L. 42, No. 35, § 2, 28 P.S. § 91b. Thus in Commonwealth v. DiGiacomo, 463 Pa. 449, 345 A.2d 605 (1975), hospital records offered by the defendant to show that a certain witness had been injured were admitted by the trial court “to prove the fact of hospitalization and the duration of hospital stay, but not to show diagnosis or medical opinion.” Id. at 455, 345 A.2d at 608. Affirming, the Supreme Court held that “[t]he law is clear that hospital records are admissible to show the fact of hospitalization, treatment prescribed, and symptoms given . . . [citations]. Medical opinion contained in the records and proffered as expert testimony is not admissible *513however where the doctor is not available for cross-examination . . . [citation]Id.
It is evident that the distinction between an entry of fact and an entry of opinion will not always be easy to draw. Moreover, there are opinions and opinions. Thus, encouraged by the commentators, a number of courts have adopted a middle ground, holding that even though the entry is of opinion, it will be admitted if the opinion is one upon which competent physicians would not be likely to differ. That is what Mr. Justice Roberts and Mr. Justice Pomeroy would hold, as they say in their respective concurring opinions in Commonwealth v. DiGiacomo, supra; as the opinion by Mr. Justice Roberts collects the authorities, there is no need to cite them here.1 The fact remains that the view of Mr. Justice Roberts and Mr. Justice Pomeroy is a minority view.2
The hospital records offered in the present case included both entries of fact and of opinion. The entries that there was an abrasion to the left hand and no evidence of trauma to the neck, head, or extremities are entries of fact; they are indistinguishable, for example, from the entry in Platt v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., supra, that the plaintiff’s decedent had expectorated a cup of blood. The entry that there were spermatozoa in the vagina is an entry of opinion; it reports a conclusion that *514the untrained layman would not be competent to make; one may assume that the person who made the entry was a laboratory technician who made a vaginal smear, and after tranferring the smear to a slide, examined it under a microscope. Accordingly, under the majority opinion in Commonwealth v. DiGiacomo, supra, this entry should not have been admitted, and a new trial should be granted.3
The majority reasons that admission was nevertheless proper because “defendant’s counsel had been in contact with the doctor who had examined the prosecutrix and had not attempted to have him testify . . . .” These facts are in my view quite immaterial. Inadmissible hearsay does not become admissible because the party objecting to the hearsay could call the declarant. The burden of proving penetration was on the Commonwealth, and had to be met by offering competent evidence. What the majority has said is that if a defendant correctly objects that the Commonwealth has offered evidence incompetent because the Commonwealth has not called the declarant, the objection will nevertheless be denied upon a showing that the defendant could have called the declarant. No authority is cited for this proposition, and I do not know of any.
II
There is a second difficulty with the majority opinion. Suppose that the majority is correct, that the entries, both of fact and opinion, are within the business records exception to the hearsay rule. That does not end the case. It remains necessary to decide whether appellant is correct in his contention that to admit the entries represented a denial of his right of confrontation. The majority opinion does not consider this contention.
*515There is a split of authority. In State v. Tims, 9 Ohio St.2d 136, 224 N.E.2d 348 (1967), the Supreme Court of Ohio held that “ [i] nasmuch as an accused has the constitutional right to confront the witness used against him the Business Records as Evidence Act is not applicable to criminal proceedings to allow the admission into evidence of hospital records showing the results of a physical examination of an alleged rape victim.” In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on People v. Lewis, 294 Mich. 684, 293 N.W. 907 (1940). Recently, however, in People v. Kirtdoll, 391 Mich. 370, 217 N.W.2d 37 (1974), the Supreme Court of Michigan, after a most careful collection and discussion of the authorities, overruled Lewis. (This is of particular interest because, as in the present case, one of the challenged entries was that spermatozoa had been found.)
As the court in Kirtdoll points out, the right of confrontation is not absolute. Thus the admission of a dying declaration or former reported testimony has been held not to violate the right. For my part, I agree with the court’s conclusion that these exceptions to the hearsay rule are indistinguishable, so far as the right of confrontation is concerned, from the business records exception. Accordingly, I would hold that it does not violate the right of confrontation to admit an entry within the business records exception — at least, not when the entry is one of fact or of an opinion upon which competent physicians would not be likely to differ.
It is arguable that our Supreme Court has in Commonwealth v. McCloud, supra, adopted the view expressed in State v. Tims, supra. It is not clear, however, that this is so, and I do not think it is. Rather, it seems to me that McCloud is to be confined to its special facts, which involved an opinion, of a sort likely to be controversial, going to an element of the crime charged, and offered despite the availability of the defendant. My guess is that if our Supreme Court overrules, or distinguishes away, *516Commonwealth v. DiGiacomo, supra, and holds that an entry of opinion is admissible under the business records exception, it will go on to adopt the view expressed by the Supreme Court of Michigan in People v. Kirtdoll, supra. Here, that would mean that the hospital records were properly admitted.
In the meantime, however, we are bound by DiGiacomo.4 I would therefore vacate the judgment of sentence and award a new trial.

. We have come close to holding the same in a civil case. Thus in Myers v. Genis, 235 Pa.Super. 531, 344 A.2d 691 (1975), we affirmed the admission of a doctor’s letters, even though the letters contained a diagnosis, where we considered that under the unusual facts of the case, equitable considerations required such a result. Whether the letters were admissible as within the Uniform Business Records as Evidence Act was not, however, decided. Id. at 533 n. 3, 344 A.2d at 693 n. 3.

. For my part, I think the law should be as stated by Mr. Justice Roberts and Mr. Justice Pomeroy. Here, that would mean that the entry that there were spermatozoa in the vagina (as well as the entries of fact) would be regarded as within the business records exception; although the entry is an entry of opinion, the opinion is a routine sort of opinion, requiring some but not a great deal of skill, and therefore not one about which competent physicians are likely to differ.

. It cannot be maintained that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; the evidence if accepted was proof positive of penetration.

. Appellant has also argued that the trial judge should have precluded the Commonwealth from impeaching him by proof of a prior felony. See Commonwealth v. Bighum, 452 Pa. 554, 307 A.2d 255 (1973). In view of DiGiacomo, I have not found it necessary to consider this argument.