Gilmour v. Strescon Industries, Inc.

66 F.R.D. 146, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1194, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13970
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedFebruary 6, 1975
DocketCiv. A. No. 71-451
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 66 F.R.D. 146 (Gilmour v. Strescon Industries, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gilmour v. Strescon Industries, Inc., 66 F.R.D. 146, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1194, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13970 (E.D. Pa. 1975).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BRODERICK, District Judge.

This matter is presently before the Court on plaintiff’s Motions for a New Trial and/or Relief from Judgment under Rule 60 F.R.Civ.P. After considering all the grounds urged by the plaintiff, the Court has determined that it must deny both motions.

Plaintiff, an employee of P. Agnes, Inc., was injured while working as a job superintendent on a construction site in Broomall, Pennsylvania. Defendant, McHugh Brothers Crane Rental, Inc. (hereinafter called “McHugh Bros.”) leased a crane with the necessary personnel to operate the crane to defendant, Strescon Industries, Inc., a sub-contractor on the job for use in the erection of the concrete work. At the trial plaintiff attempted to prove that while operating the crane, Richard McManus, an employee of McHugh Bros., caused the crane to strike an office trailer against which a ladder was leaning and upon which ladder the plaintiff was standing. The plaintiff allegedly jumped from the ladder on which he was standing out of fear for his life and thereby suffered injuries. McHugh Bros, denied that the accident ever took place; and specifically, that the crane did not strike the trailer.

This case was tried before this Court and a jury. The issues as to liability and damages were severed and the liability portion of the case was submitted to the jury on special interrogatories pursuant to Rule 49(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. By its answers the jury found that neither of the defendants was negligent. Judgment in accordance with that verdict was entered in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiff.

MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL PURSUANT TO RULE 59

The first ground advanced by the plaintiff in support of his motion for a new trial is that the Court erred in excluding from the evidence the second paragraph of a report made by Richard McManus, the crane operator, to his employer, the defendant McHugh Bros. The plaintiff had called Richard McManus as a witness in an effort to corroborate the plaintiff’s testimony that the crane struck the office trailer. While Mr. McManus was on the stand the plaintiff sought to have admitted into evidence a report Mr. McManus made to McHugh Bros. The report reads as follows:

“I have no knowledge of any accident or any man being hurt. I was the crane operator on the crane at the [149]*149Presbyterian Nursing Home Job August 25, 1970. We arrived on the job and put the boom in the crane with the gantry in the down position. As soon as the crane had the boom installed, we boomed up and did the job from that spot. There was no bumping of any trailer or anything on this job to the best of my knowledge. “Henry Luff the oiler on the job told me that the gantry did scratch the trailer when the boom was being installed, but he has no knowledge of any accident.
/s/ Richard McManus”

Clearly, any out-of-court statements made to the plaintiff’s witness, Mr. McManus, would be objectionable hearsay unless brought within one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule. "The second paragraph of the above quoted report which the Court excluded from evidence constituted a hearsay statement of a Mr. Henry Luff. Mr. McManus’ report was submitted with a transmittal letter to McHugh Bros.’ liability insurance carrier and was made after suit was initiated, months after the alleged accident, and was obtained in connection with defense of the lawsuit. The plaintiff in his motion for a new trial claims that by sustaining the defendants’ objection to the admission of the second paragraph of the report, the Court committed trial error. The plaintiff takes the position that Mr. McManus’ statement in the report as to what Mr. Luff told him should have been admitted under one of the following exceptions to the hearsay rule.

The plaintiff contends that the excluded statement contained in the report of Mr. McManus should have been admitted as an admission by the defendant McHugh Bros., since it was a statement made by its employees, Richard McManus and Henry Luff.

It has been held in our Third Circuit that an employee’s statement to his employer and not to a third party on behalf of the employer does not constitute an admission by the employer. As stated by Judge Goodrich in Nuttall v. Reading Co., 235 F.2d 546, 550 (3d Cir. 1956):

The reports were made by agents to their principal or to fellow agents and not to a third party on behalf of the principal. A third party then is in no position to argue that the employees were representing or speaking for the railroad when they made the statements. This appears to be the approach taken by the Pennsylvania courts and by most authorities.

Thus, under the prevailing rule, Mr. McManus’ report containing Mr. Luff’s statement did not qualify as an admission of his principal, since the report was made by an employee to his .employer and not to a third party on behalf of the employer.

Although the rule stated in Nut-tall appears to be the presently governing law in this Circuit, we do recognize that Rule 801 of the Proposed Rules of Evidence for United States Courts and Magistrates, cited to us by the plaintiff, may present a question as to whether a statement made by an agent to his principal constitutes an admission if the statement otherwise meets the requirements for an admission. Although we pose the issue, it is not decided because, as hereinafter discussed, the statement does not meet other basic requirements for an admission.

A statement to be admitted into evidence as an admission under the provisions of Rule 801 of the Proposed Rules of Evidence relied on by the plaintiff, must have been made by a person authorized by a party to make a statement concerning the subject, Rule 801 (d)(2)(C), or by an agent or servant concerning a matter within the scope of his agency or employment made during the existence of the relationship, Rule 801(d)(2)(D). In this case the plaintiff failed to satisfy either of these basic [150]*150requirements for admissibility of the hearsay as an admission.

The plaintiff failed to prove that Mr. Luff was authorized by McHugh Bros, either to make statements generally on behalf of McHugh Bros, or that Mr. Luff had any special authorization to make a statement with regard to the particular matter. Furthermore, the plaintiff failed to show that Mr. Luff made the statement when he was engaged in doing an act he was employed to do or which was within the scope of his employment. Mr. Luff was an “oiler” on the crane. The law of Pennsylvania, as interpreted by our Third Circuit in Moran v. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co., 183 F.2d 467 (3d Cir. 1950), is clear that statements of defendants’ employees would not be received as admissions against defendants where employees did not have managerial responsibilities.

The plaintiff also argues that the excluded portion of Mr. McManus’ report was admissible under the “declaration against interest” exception to the hearsay rule. Plaintiff contends that the report was a declaration by an agent against the interest of his employer.

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Bluebook (online)
66 F.R.D. 146, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1194, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13970, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gilmour-v-strescon-industries-inc-paed-1975.