Stevens v. Duke
| Decision Date | 11 October 1949 |
| Citation | 42 So.2d 361 |
| Parties | STEVENS et al. v. DUKE et al. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Liddon, Fee & Parker, Fort Pierce, and Dixon, DeJarnette & Bradford, Miami, for appellants.
Evans Crary, Stuart, John D. Kennedy, Fort Lauderdale, and Earnest, Lewis & Smith, West Palm Beach, for appellees.
The defendants have appealed from a final judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in a case involving a collision in Martin County between motor vehicles owned and operated by respective parties. The defendants seek reversal of the judgment on two grounds, both of which relate to the refusal of the trial judge to admit certain evidence proffered by the defendants.
As to the first assignment of error the record shows that as the result of the collision the driver of the defendants' motor vehicle was killed. The plaintiffs' driver, one Graham, was severely injured in the accident and was removed to a hospital in Palm Beach County for medical and surgical care and treatment. The day following the accident, one Purtle, a Florida Highway Patrolman in charge of investigating the accident in Martin County, requested one Randall, a Florida Highway Patrolman stationed in Palm Beach County, to interview Graham and secure from him a written statement concerning the details of the collision. Acting pursuant to his instructions, Randall interrogated plaintiffs' driver and the answers given in response to this interrogation were written down by Randall in longhand and signed by Graham as his statement of the accident. Thereafter, the signed statement was forwarded by Randall to Purtle to enable the latter to complete his accident report to be filed with the State Department of Public Safety. Whether the statement furnished by Randall to Purtle was ever incorporated in the report made by Randall, is not shown by the record.
When this case came on for trial in the court below the defendants called Randall as a witness for the purpose of having him testify to the substance of the statement made to him by plaintiffs' driver. The plaintiffs objected to this testimony on the ground that the statements made by plaintiffs' driver to the highway patrolman with respect to the accident were privileged and could not be used in any trial arising out of the accident. The objection was sustained and the defendants have assigned this ruling as error.
It is our view that the trial court did not commit reversible error in excluding the proffered testimony. Section 317.13, Florida Statutes, 1941, F.S.A. requires the driver of a motor vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to, or death of, any person or total property damage to an extent of fifty dollars or more, within twenty-four hours after such accident, to forward a written report of such accident to the Florida Department of Public Safety. A failure on the part of a driver to make and forward such a report is declared by statute to be a misdemeanor. See Sec. 317.04(2), Florida Statutes, 1941, F.S.A. Section 317.13 also requires every law enforcement officer who in the regular course of his duty investigates such a motor vehicle accident, whether at the time of and at the scene of the accident or thereafter by interviewing participants or witnesses, to forward a written report of such accident to the Department, within twenty-four hours after completing such investigation.
By reason of the requirements of Section 317.13, the driver of plaintiffs' motor vehicle was charged with the duty of making a written report of the accident to the Department of Public Safety. We think he discharged that duty when in answer to questions propounded to him by Randall, a Florida Highway Patrolman then acting in the line of duty as a representative of the Department, he gave the patrolman a full account of his version of the accident which was reduced to writing and signed by him. The oral statements made by him were as much a part of the report of the accident as was the written statement prepared by Randall from the oral statements and signed by the driver to be forwarded to Purtle. Section 317.17, Florida Statutes, 1941, F.S.A. provides that 'All accident reports made by persons involved in accidents shall be without prejudice to the individual so reporting' and that 'No such report shall be used as evidence in any trial * * * arising out of an accident.' When the circumstances under which the signed statement was procured are considered, we think that it would have constituted a violation of the statute to have held that though the written statement signed by the driver was privileged, the oral statements shown by the evidence to have formed the basis for the written statement did not enjoy such immunity. McBride v....
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