Friedel v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of New York

Citation296 N.Y. 347,73 N.E.2d 545
PartiesFRIEDEL v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.
Decision Date22 May 1947
CourtNew York Court of Appeals

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Proceeding in the matter of the application of Dr. Herman Friedel for review under article 78 of the Civil Practice Act, s 1283 et seq., of a determination of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York suspending petitioner's license to practice medicine, transferred to the Appellate Division by an order of the Supreme Court at Special Term entered in Albany county. From an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, 269 App.Div. 890, 56 N.Y.S.2d 148, entered July 6, 1945, which annulled a determination of the Board of Regents suspending petitioner's license to practice medicine and suspending his registration as a physician, and remitted the matter to the board for further action, the Board of Regents appeals. On the appeal, appellant stipulated for order absolute in the event of affirmance.

Order of Appellate Division reversed and determination of Board of Regents confirmed. Nathaniel L. Goldstein, Atty. Gen. (Henry S. Manley and Wendell P. Brown, both of Albany, of counsel), for appellant.

Harris B. Steinberg and R. L. Cherurg, both of New York City, for respondent.

DESMOND, Judge.

Petitioner, a physician was, after a trial conducted under the procedures described in section 1265 of the Education Law, Consol.Laws, c. 16, found guilty of two violations of subdivision 2 of section 1264 of that Law (undertaking or engaging to perform criminal abortions), and suspended from the practice of medicine for six months. The hearings in the matter were held, pursuant to statute, before a subcommittee of the Committee on Grievances, a body of physicians (see s 1265) and the suspension was by the respondent Board of Regents, which approved the report and findings of the committee. On appeal to the Appellate Division, Third Department, that court reversed the determination and remitted the matter to the Board of Regents. The Appellate Division's Per Curiam opinion, and the concurring memorandum of one of the justices, show that the reversal was because of alleged illegal restriction, by the subcommittee, of the cross-examination by petitioner's counsel of the board's paid investigators, who were the principal witnesses against petitioner. The Board of Regents appealed to this court, stipulating for order absolute in the event of affirmance, under subdivision 3 of section 588 of the Civil Practice Act. See Matter of Epstein v. Board of Regents of University of New York, 295 N.Y. 154, 157, 65 N.E.2d 756, 757.

No assertion is made here that the proof was inadequate to support the determination of guilt. The whole question is as to the legality of rulings made by the subcommittee, which rulings had the effect of preventing or restricting cross-examination of the investigators, in certain particulars. The Appellate Division opinions do not disclose just which ruling of the subcommittee that court considered erroneous. However, counsel in their briefs here list for us the objections to cross-examination which were sustained at the hearings, and we take it that the Appellate Division found material error in some of those rulings.

The curtailed cross-examinations were those in which petitioner attacked the evidence given by four women, part-time employees of the State Education Department, who testified to two instances in which petitioner, according to the witnesses, agreed to perform illegal abortions. Their versions of the facts were, at the hearings before the subcommittee, strongly attacked by contrary proof and by extendedand searching cross-examination. In the course of that cross-examination the chairman of the subcommittee sustained objections to questions which soubht to elicit from one or the other of the investigator-witnesses answers to the following:

1. Whether the witnesses went to petitioner's office and made the alleged arrangement with him in order to ‘trap’ petitioner or to get him to ‘commit himself with respect to an abortion’? The witnesses had testified in great detail as to their employment by the State Education Department, their instructions from their superiors, the methods they used, and their purposes in approaching petitioner. Answers to the stricken questions would merely have put labels on conduct already sufficiently described, and so would have added nothing to the record.

2. Whether the witnesses knew that if they brought in such evidence ‘there would be a likelihood of punishment to be meted out to the Doctor’? We make the same comment as in No. 1 above.

3. What were the names of three physicians, not connected with this case, who had been investigated by one of the witnesses in 1943? The triers of the fact were well within their rights in preventing any such disclosure. See President, etc., of Great Western Turnpike Co. c. Loomis, 32 N.Y. 127,88 Am.Dec. 311; La Beau v. People, 34 N.Y. 223.

4. Who was the physician (not otherwise connected with the case) who furnished one of the investigators with a urine sample used by the investigator as part of the deception practised by her on petitioner? We think this effort to get the name of that other physician was properly thwarted by the subcommittee, for the reasons given in No. 3 above, and under the subcommittee's discretionary power to limit cross-examination, to which power we shall refer below.

5. Whether one of the witnesses had been engaged to be married to her present husband before her divorce from her former husband, and as to whether the husband of another witness knew that she permitted the physicians under investigation to make examinations of her person? The first question was properly stricken under the rule of the La Beau case, supra, as being cross-examination on matters degarding to the witness. We think both questions were attempted incursions into the marital relations of the witnesses, matters surely not so material to the transactions under investigation as to make it error of law to exclude the questions.

We think there was no error of law in...

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36 cases
  • People v. Alaniz
    • United States
    • California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • 29 Marzo 1957
    ...104 N.E. 396, 407; People v. Cole, 43 N.Y. 508, 512-513, and has been from earliest times, Friedel v. Board of Regents of University of New York, 296 N.Y. 347, 352, 73 N.E.2d 545, 548. Although in the last-cited case we held that 'once the right has been accorded, the extent of cross-examin......
  • Shand v. Aetna Ins. Co.
    • United States
    • New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
    • 19 Mayo 1980
    ...May 5, 1980).2 See Matter of Humphrey v. State Ins. Fund, 298 N.Y. 327, 332, 83 N.E.2d 539; Matter of Friedel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of New York, 296 N.Y. 347, 352, 73 N.E.2d 545; see, also, 73 C.J.S. Public Administrative Bodies and Procedure §§ 8 and 36; 1 N.Y.Jur., Adminis......
  • In re Metro. Transp. Auth.
    • United States
    • New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
    • 3 Febrero 2011
    ...event, it was within the court's discretion to limit the scope of cross-examination ( see Matter of Friedel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N.Y., 296 N.Y. 347, 352-353, 73 N.E.2d 545 [1947] ) and rebuttal ( see Coopersmith v. Gold, 223 A.D.2d 572, 574, 636 N.Y.S.2d 399 [1996], affd......
  • Feldsberg v. Nitschke
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • 1 Abril 1980
    ...(see People v. Braun, 158 N.Y. 558, 567-569, 53 N.E. 529) or prohibit unnecessarily repetitive examination (Matter of Friedel v. Board of Regents, 296 N.Y. 347, 351, 73 N.E.2d 545). Nor can it be doubted that recall of a witness for redirect examination is subject to the discretion of the c......
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25 books & journal articles
  • Witness examination
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Archive New York Objections - 2015 Contents
    • 2 Agosto 2015
    ...is a matter of right in every trial of a disputed issue of fact. Friedel v. Board of Regents of University of the State of New York , 296 N.Y. 347, 73 N.E.2d 545 (1947); Fusco v. Hobbes, 16 A.D.3d 1031, 791 N.Y.S.2d 790 (4th Dept. 2005) (trial court should have allowed cross-examination of ......
  • Witness examination
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Archive New York Objections - 2019 Contents
    • 2 Agosto 2019
    ...is a matter of right in every trial of a disputed issue of fact. Friedel v. Board of Regents of University of the State of New York , 296 N.Y. 347, 73 N.E.2d 545 (1947); Fusco v. Hobbes, 16 A.D.3d 1031, 791 N.Y.S.2d 790 (4th Dept. 2005) (trial court should have allowed cross-examination of ......
  • Witness examination
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Archive New York Objections - 2021 Contents
    • 2 Agosto 2021
    ...is a matter of right in every trial of a disputed issue of fact. Friedel v. Board of Regents of University of the State of New York , 296 N.Y. 347, 73 N.E.2d 545 (1947); Fusco v. Hobbes, 16 A.D.3d 1031, 791 N.Y.S.2d 790 (4th Dept. 2005) (trial court should have allowed cross-examination of ......
  • Table of cases
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Archive New York Objections - 2014 Contents
    • 2 Agosto 2014
    ...v. Meinhardt, 247 A.D.2d 791, 669 N.Y.2d 444 (3d Dept. 1998), § 16:100 Friedel v. Board of Regents of University of the State of New York, 296 N.Y. 347, 73 N.E.2d 545 (1947), §§ 1:20, 15:20, 15:100, 15:120 Friedman-Wallach Co., Inc. v. Rosenau Bros., 189 N.Y.S. 102 (1st Dept. 1921), § 5:20 ......
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