Eggers v. Phillips Hardware Co.
| Decision Date | 23 May 1956 |
| Citation | 88 So.2d 507 |
| Parties | Charles EGGERS, Appellant, v. PHILLIPS HARDWARE COMPANY, a Florida corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
George L. Knight, Miami, for appellant.
Blackwell, Walker & Gray and Lane, Muir, Wakefield, Frazier & Lane, Miami, for appellee.
This is an appeal by plaintiff from a jury verdict and judgment in favor or defendant entered in a suit for damages filed by him to recover for injuries sustained when, as he was attempting to walk across a street at a street intersection in the City of Miami, he was hit by a truck owned by defendant and being driven by defendant's employee.
The principal issue here is whether the trial judge erred in admitting in evidence the testimony of the investigating officers that they did not arrest the defendant's employee for a violation of any of the city's traffic ordinances as a result of their investigation of the accident. We have concluded that this was error.
It is settled law in this jurisdiction that evidence of defendant's conviction or acquittal in a criminal proceeding is not admissible in a civil suit against the defendant arising out of the occurrence which formed the basis of the criminal charge against him. Stevens v. Duke, Fla.1949, 42 So.2d 361; Wirt v. Fraser, Fla., 30 So.2d 174. The reason for this rule of inadmissibility is that 'the obvious difference in objects, issues, procedure and results in civil and criminal proceedings, particularly in the case of traffic violations, renders such evidence clearly 'not relevant or admissible." Moseley v. Ewing, Fla., 79 So.2d 776, 778. An arrest is but the initial step in a criminal proceeding leading to the conviction or acquittal of the accused, and we think the quoted statement is just as applicable to an arrest as to a conviction or acquittal of a criminal charge. While the court did not expressly so hold in the Moseley case, we have noted that the defendant in that case was asked whether he had been charged with a traffic offense, as well as whether he had been convicted thereof; and, in holding that such evidence was inadmissible, the court did not distinguish between the two questions. If such testimony cannot be elicited from a defendant, it is equally irrelevant when sought to be elicited from the investigating officer.
The plaintiff's objection to the question was timely made, and it was sufficient to apprise the trial judge of the nature of the...
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Special v. Baux
...process was compromised; these cases apply an “effect on the fact finder” test for harmless error. For example, Eggers v. Phillips Hardware Co., 88 So.2d 507 (Fla.1956), involving an action for injuries to a pedestrian caused by a truck driver, held it was error to admit into evidence the t......
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Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Kuhl
...Service v. Williams, 171 Cal.App.2d 397, 340 P.2d 644 (1959); Brown v. Moyle, 133 Colo. 29, 290 P.2d 1105 (1955); Eggers v. Phillips Hardware Co., 88 So.2d 507 (Fla.1956); Smith v. Goodwin, 103 Ga.App. 248, 119 S.E.2d 35 (1961); Montgomery County v. Crum, 199 Ind. 660, 161 N.E. 251 (1928); ......
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State Farm v. Carter
...of prior acquittal on criminal charges arising out of the civil case), cert. denied, 412 So.2d 464 (Fla.1982); Eggers v. Phillips Hardware Co., 88 So.2d 507, 507 (Fla.1956)(concluding that testimony by police officers that they did not arrest the defendant for violation of traffic laws was ......
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Watters v. Parrish
...of this evidence over the defendant's objection constituted reversible error, and ordered a new trial. See also Eggers v. Phillips Hardware Co., Fla.1956, 88 So.2d 507. Sherwood v. Murray, Tex.Civ.App.1950, 233 S.W.2d 879, 880, was an action for damages growing out of a collision between tw......