Court Opinion

ID: 9772758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:29:09.737062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:43:13.001743
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing or to Transfer to Court En Banc.
PER CURIAM.
Our ruling that the portions of the pleadings offered could not be used for the purpose sought is sufficiently predicated upon the grounds stated in the opinion. However, in view of the further contentions *86made in appellants’ motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, to transfer to the court en banc, we will, in the interest of clarity and for ready reference, set out the rule relied on and its reasons as stated in Wigmore on Evidence, Vol. 4, § 1064 (2), p. 48, with a connected portion of the text preceding the statement:
“This much being generally conceded, it follows that a party may at any and all times invoke the language of his opponent’s pleading on that particular issue as rendering certain facts indisputable-, * * *.
“(2) How does this principle affect the use of the pleadings upon another issue in the same cause ? It forbids any resort to a pleading upon another issue; because the object of each set of pleadings or counts is to raise and to define the separate issues, and any use of the one to-aid the other would to that extent defeat this object and prevent the trying of the issue made.”
This statement of the rule was approved and applied in Hardwick v. Kansas City Gas Co., 355 Mo. 100, 195 S.W.2d 504, 509 [7], 166 A.L.R. 556, as noted in the opinion.
Since the offer was properly excluded on this ground, we need not explore other factors affecting the competency of impeachment evidence. Neither are we concerned with a situation in which a party-witness has testified contrary to a purely factual allegation of his pleadings.
The defendants further assert in support of their motions that the pleadings offered were usable for impeachment purposes even though in these circumstances they do not “possess the character inherent in admissions.” The distinction claimed is not well taken. See Wigmore on Evidence, Third Ed., Vol. 4, §§ 1048 and 1051, dealing with the use of admissions of a party as testimonial impeachment. In § 1051, p. 8, Vol. 4, the author states: “An admission is logically useful against the party in the same way as a prior Self-Contradiction against a witness (ante, §§ 1018, 1048), and its admissibility rests partly on that ground.”
The defendants further contend that the pleadings of the defendant Hays were abandoned and no longer operative at the time they were offered because his motion for a directed verdict was sustained at the end of the plaintiff’s case. This was not discussed in the original briefs, but it makes no difference in the result. Since the dismissal was not voluntary, the plaintiff had the right to request a new trial as to the defendant Hays and to this extent Hays was still a party to the case.
We find these and the other matters urged are without merit and, accordingly, the motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, to transfer to the court en banc is overruled.