Addyman v. Specialties of Greenville, Inc., 20989

• Citation: 273 S.C. 342,257 S.E.2d 149
• Decision Date: 19 June 1979
• Docket Number: No. 20989,20989
• Parties: Mary Ann ADDYMAN, Appellant, v. SPECIALTIES OF GREENVILLE, INC. Respondent. Peter D. ADDYMAN, Appellant, v. SPECIALTIES OF GREENVILLE, INC., Respondent.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina

Page 149

257 S.E.2d 149

273 S.C. 342

Mary Ann ADDYMAN, Appellant, v. SPECIALTIES OF GREENVILLE, INC. Respondent.

Peter D. ADDYMAN, Appellant, v. SPECIALTIES OF GREENVILLE, INC., Respondent.

No. 20989.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

June 19, 1979.

Michael Parham of Abrams, Bowen, Robertson, Tapp & Parham, Greenville, for appellants.

G. Dewey Oxner, Jr., of Haynsworth, Perry, Bryant, Marion & Johnstone, Greenville, for respondent.

RHODES, Justice:

Appellant, Mary Ann Addyman, commenced this action against the corporate respondent, Specialties of Greenville, Inc., to recover for property damage and personal injuries sustained in an automobile accident. ¹ She now appeals from an adverse jury verdict assigning error in the lower court's exclusion of evidence. We reverse.

The appellant alleged that the accident was precipitated by the respondent's employee who, in disregard of a stop sign, pulled onto the highway on which she was traveling. The appellant did not join the driver of the vehicle, Mr. Adamson, respondent's employee, as a party defendant, but sued only the corporate defendant on the theory of negligence.

Resolution of this appeal is governed by two evidentiary questions:

I. Should a post-accident statement by respondent's employee on the issue of liability by admitted in evidence against his principal?

II. Should the corporate employee's plea of guilty to a traffic violation issued at the time of the accident be admitted on cross-examination for purposes of impeaching the employee's testimony as a witness?

I.

During her case in chief, the appellant attempted to introduce testimony by a disinterested witness concerning remarks made to him by respondent's driver shortly following the accident. The witness, Mr. Lamb, operated a wrecker service in very close proximity to the site of the accident and testified that, although he did not view the accident, he heard the crash and immediately drove to the scene. According to Mr. Lamb's proffered testimony, Mr. Adamson approached him approximately four to five minutes after his arrival and made the following statement:

"Q. Mr. Lamb, after you arrived at the scene, after Mr. Adamson came over to you, what, if anything, did he say?

"A. He said, 'It must be too early in the morning,' that he couldn't, you know, something like, 'I'm half asleep and I didn't see her when she came over the hill.' "

The trial court excluded this testimony on the stated ground that it constituted hearsay and did not qualify under any recognized exception to the hearsay rule.

The trial court erred in refusing to admit the statement as a part of Res gestae. To qualify as a part of Res gestae, the statement must be:

". . . substantially contemporaneous with the litigated transaction, and be the instinctive, spontaneous utterances of the mind while under the active, immediate influences of the transaction; the circumstances precluding the idea that the utterances are the result of reflection or designed to make false or self-serving declaration." (Citations Omitted).

State v. Long, 186 S.C. 439, 195 S.E. 624 (1938).

In resolving substantial contemporaneity, the cases have permitted a slight time lapse between the declarations and the event. In Eudy v. Atlantic Greyhound Lines, 183 S.C. 306, 191 S.E. 85 (1937), the admission of a servant's statement against his principal on the theory of Res gestae was upheld where it was made five minutes after occurrence of the accident. In Van Boven v. F. W. Woolworth Co., 239 S.C. 519, 528, 123 S.E.2d 862, 866 (1962), an employee's statement made immediately after escorting an injured customer to her supervisor was held to properly constitute Res gestae because it was spontaneously made and ". . . tended to unfold the nature and quality of the main or primary fact in showing the reason for respondent's fall."

The lower court relied primarily upon the case of Marshall v. Thomason, 241 S.C. 84, 127 S.E.2d 177 (1962) as authority for excluding the proffered statement of defendant's employee as to the cause of the accident. In Marshall, a driver's post collision remarks to an investigating patrolman were held inadmissible as Res gestae because the statement, which was made 30 minutes after the accident, lacked the requisite spontaneity necessary to link the remarks to the collision. Unlike Marshall, the statement at bar was sufficiently close in point of time and place so as to render it "substantially contemporaneous" with the main event.

The evidence should have been admitted.

II.

Appellant's remaining exceptions allege error in the trial court's refusal to permit appellant to cross-examine the respondent's driver on his plea of guilty to a charge of failure to yield right of way at the time of the accident. Her primary contention proposes that such evidence should have been admitted for the purpose of impeaching the credibility of the driver's testimony as a witness.

In appellant's complaint, she alleged as one of the specifications of...