Conley v. Mervis
| Citation | 188 A. 350 |
| Parties | CONLEY et al. v. MERVIS. |
| Decision Date | 07 December 1936 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania |
CONLEY et al.
v.
MERVIS.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Dec. 7, 1936.
[Copyrighted material omitted.]
Appeal No. 144, March term, 1936, from order of Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County; M. A. Musmanno, Judge.
Suit in trespass by Nellie Conley, by her husband and next friend, Andrew C. Conley, and by Andrew C. Conley in his own right, against Morris Mervis, trading as Mervis Motor Sales, for personal injuries and for damages to an automobile. The issues were submitted to the jury, and it disagreed. From an order refusing defendant's motion for judgment on the whole record, defendant appeals.
Order reversed, and judgment entered for defendant.
Argued before KEPHART, C. J., and SCHAFFER, DREW, LINN, and STERN, JJ.
Arthur M. Grossman and Harold H. Herwitt, both of Pittsburgh, for appellant.
Jacob Shulgold, of Pittsburgh, for appellee.
KEPHART, Chief Justice.
Appellees, plaintiffs in the court below, were injured by a truck bearing dealer's license plates owned by appellant, the defendant. Defendant denied ownership of the truck and that the driver was his servant. It appeared that dealer's license plates No. 3X547 for 1931 were on the truck at the time of the accident, and defendant was called by plaintiffs as on cross-examination and asked whether he had owned the license plates. Having admitted ownership, his counsel proposed to examine him further in connection therewith: whether they had been loaned to any one and whether the truck was driven by his servant in the scope of his employment. The court below refused to permit the examination, holding that these matters were part of defendant's case and could not be brought out under the guise of cross-examination. The defendant was forced to introduce this testimony as part of his own case. The issues having been submitted to the jury, it disagreed, and the refusal of defendant's request for judgment on the whole record caused this appeal.
It is conceded that the ownership of dealer's license plates appearing on a motor vehicle raises a rebuttable presumption that the truck belonged to the owner of the tags, and was driven by his agent or servant in the scope of employment; and this, without more, would require the submission of these questions to the jury, even though rebutted by the uncontradicted oral testimony of the dealer's witnesses. Coates v. Commercial Credit Co., 310 Pa. 330, 165 A. 377; Haring v. Connell, 244 Pa. 439, 90 A. 910; Prezel v. Spencer, 99 Pa.Super. 404; Theil v. Wolfe, 77 Pa. Super. 312; Herrington v. Hill, 60 Pa. Super. 202; cf. Orluske v. Nash Pittsburgh Motors Co., 286 Pa. 170, 133 A. 148. Defendant contends, however, that the court below should have permitted his cross-examination to embrace any matter touching upon or connected with the question of ownership of the tags, including all the inferences arising therefrom, and, if this had been allowed, the prima facie case arising from ownership would have been overcome by plaintiffs' own witness.
The scope of cross-examination in Pennsylvania is more restricted than that permitted in England, where it may embrace any matter material to the case, irrespective of whether it relates to a point testified to by the witness in his examination in chief. See 4 Wigmore on Evidence (2d Ed.) §§ 1885 to 1891. In this state it has been frequently stated that cross-examination must be strictly confined to matters touched upon in direct examination. This viewpoint originated in general statements which appear frequently in our cases discussing the permissible scope of cross-examination. "The cross-examination, as a general thing, is only regular when it is confined to the testimony given by the witness in chief." Helser v. McGrath, 52 Pa. 531, 532, 533. "It is certainly well settled in this state that cross-examination must be confined to the matters which have been stated in the examination in chief." Jackson v. Litch, 62 Pa. 451, 455. Expressions of a similar nature will be found in numerous other cases. See Hopkinson v. Leeds, 78 Pa. 396, 400; Hughes v. Westmoreland Coal Co., 104 Pa. 207, 213; Glenn v. Traction Co., 206 Pa. 135, 137, 55 A. 860. But this rigid rule has not been closely adhered to, and we have created well-defined exceptions. The conception that these general pronouncements are an accurate statement of the rule is erroneous. It disregards the limitations imposed on its operation and ignores the fundamental reasons for the imposition of any restrictions on the scope of cross-examination.
The underlying reason for confining the scope of cross-examination is to promote
order and method in the presentation of a case. Each party must have an opportunity to present his side of the case without the introduction of matters...
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