Newton v. Ryder Trans. Services

• Decision Date: 13 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-1857,99-1857
• Citation: 206 F.3d 772
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2000) JAMES CARLTON NEWTON, APPELLEE, v. RYDER TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, INC., APPELLANT. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 772

206 F.3d 772 (8th Cir. 2000)

JAMES CARLTON NEWTON, APPELLEE, v. RYDER TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, INC., APPELLANT.

No. 99-1857

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: January 13, 2000

Filed: March 14, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Before Wollman, Chief Judge, and Floyd R. Gibson and Morris Sheppard Arnold, Circuit Judges.

Morris Sheppard Arnold, Circuit Judge.

James Newton filed this complaint in diversity, claiming that he suffered injuries because Ryder Transportation Services, Inc., negligently failed to complete certain mechanical repairs to a truck that it leased to Mr. Newton's employer and negligently failed to replace the truck's defective seat belt. The jury returned a verdict in Mr. Newton's favor on both theories and awarded him $204,000, attributing 25 percent of the damages to Ryder's failure to complete the repairs and the remaining 75 percent to Ryder's failure to replace the seat belt. Ryder appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in refusing to admit the deposition of Sergeant Anthony Parker and in denying Ryder's motion for judgment as a matter of law on the seat belt claim. We reverse and remand the matter for a new trial.

I.

When Mr. Newton complained to his employer that the truck that he was driving "[p]ulled hard to the right" and that the seat belt on the driver's side was "stuck," his employer requested that Ryder make repairs pursuant to their lease agreement. Although Ryder asserts that it remedied the steering difficulty, it concedes that it was unable to replace the seat belt because the necessary parts were unavailable. A few days after the truck left the Ryder maintenance facility, Mr. Newton was driving it from Arkansas to Mississippi and was involved in a one-vehicle accident that left him with injuries to his thigh.

Sergeant Parker was the first officer at the scene. During his deposition, he was unable to recall the accident even after being presented with a copy of the relevant accident report that he had filled out and signed. He did, however, read the report into the record of his deposition, and he explained what various parts of it meant. According to Sergeant Parker, the report indicated that Mr. Newton stated that he fell asleep behind the wheel and that he was wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. When Ryder sought to have Sergeant Parker's deposition read into evidence, Mr. Newton objected on the grounds of hearsay, and the trial court sustained the objection.

Mr. Newton maintains, first, that the part of the accident report concerning his statement about falling asleep at the wheel was not relevant because Ryder failed to plead contributory negligence. While Mr. Newton concedes that Ryder has consistently denied responsibility for the accident, he points out that the trial court granted his motion in limine to prevent Ryder from asserting contributory negligence as part of its defense, a ruling from which Ryder did not appeal. Mr. Newton argues that the accident report was relevant only on the issue of his own negligence, and is therefore barred by Ryder's failure to plead affirmative defenses. We disagree.

The verdict form in this case asked the jury to determine whether Ryder "negligently failed to make mechanical repairs which proximately caused plaintiff's injuries." The question of who caused the accident was therefore always at the heart of this case, and we reject Mr. Newton's contention that Ryder's failure to plead the affirmative defense of contributory negligence somehow bars it from presenting evidence that Mr. Newton caused the accident by falling asleep at the wheel. This aspect of the accident report quite obviously goes directly to a principal issue in the case.

Mr. Newton also contends in his brief that, "[s]ince the jury found Ryder's negligence to be a proximate cause of the wreck, the seatbelt argument is now moot." We find his argument unpersuasive because the jury had to determine not only whether Ryder caused injury to Mr. Newton by negligently failing to make the necessary mechanical repairs but also, to quote one of the interrogatories, whether Ryder "negligently failed to replace the seat belt which proximately caused plaintiff's injuries." The jury was therefore presented two separate and distinct inquiries that required independent findings of causation. A finding that Ryder's negligence in not making mechanical repairs caused some injury to Mr. Newton does not answer the question of whether Ryder negligently failed to replace the seat belt and caused other injuries, and therefore does not moot that issue. There was no contention, and there could have been none, that Ryder's failure to replace the seat belt somehow caused the accident.

II.

Ryder contends that the contents of the accident report were admissible because the information in it qualified as a hearsay exception under Fed. R. Evid. 803(5). That rule permits the admission of a "record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable the witness to testify fully and accurately, shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in the witness' memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly." If these predicates are satisfied, the record may then be read into evidence, but it is not itself received as an exhibit. See generally Greger v. International Jensen, Inc., 820 F.2d 937, 943 (8th Cir. 1987).

The rule makes no attempt to spell out a precise method that courts should use for establishing the witness's initial knowledge or the contemporaneity and accuracy of the record in question, but rather leaves these matters to be "dealt with as the circumstances of the particular case might indicate." See Fed. R. Evid. 803(5), advisory committee notes to 1972 proposed rules. Mr. Newton argues that the accident report is inadmissible because it is unclear whether Sergeant Parker received the information from Mr. Newton or from some other person. We disagree.

Mr. Newton refers us to Meder v....