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Burlington Northern Railroad Co. v. Hood12/10/1990
The question in this case is whether the trial court, during a jury trial on a personal injury claim brought under the Federal Employer's Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § § 51 to - 60 (1989), erred in prohibiting the defendant from questioning the plaintiff and the plaintiff's wife about a purported conversation in which the plaintiff allegedly admitted to his wife, who repeated the conversation to several other persons, that he had staged a work-related accident and had feigned the injuries for which he sought damages against the defendant-employer. The trial court ruled that such evidence was inadmissible because it might encroach upon the statutory marital privilege for communications between husband and wife, § 13-90-107(1)(a)(I), 6A C.R.S. (Supp. 1990), also because any testimony about the conversation ostensibly would be lacking in personal knowledge and credibility in light of the wife's deposition testimony that the statement attributed to her husband may have been a dream, and, finally, because any trial testimony by the wife about the conversation would constitute inadmissible hearsay. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the court of appeals affirmed the judgment in an unpublished opinion. Hood v. Burlington Northern Co., No. 86CA1799 (April 27, 1989). In affirming the judgment, the court of appeals did not consider the issue of marital privilege, but upheld the trial court's rulings on other grounds. It concluded that any cross-examination of the wife about her reporting the conversation to others would have been beyond the scope of her direct examination and inadmissible hearsay, that it would have been improper for the defendant to have elicited testimony from other witnesses about the wife's statement because of its hearsay nature, and that the defendant failed to preserve for appellate review its right to cross-examine the plaintiff about his alleged admission to his wife. We granted the defendant's petition for certiorari to consider whether the court of appeals properly resolved these evidentiary issues. We now reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.
I.
The issues in this case arise out of a negligence claim filed by Sidney L. Hood for injuries allegedly sustained while working as a locomotive electrician for Burlington Northern Railroad Company on December 28, 1983, at a railroad repair facility in Alliance, Nebraska. At the time of the accident, Hood was working in a diesel pit, which is a recessed service bay spanned by overhead tracks on which the locomotive engine is placed to facilitate repair. Hood fell from a ladder while working on an engine and struck his head on the floor. Shortly before the accident, which occurred at approximately 10:00 p.m., some lights in the service bay area unexpectedly went out. Several minutes later, after the lights came on, Hood was found by a co-worker lying unconscious on the floor of the service bay with a gash on the right side of his head and his face swollen. A lighted flashlight and a stepladder were resting near him.
Hood was taken to a local hospital and remained there for several days under the care of his family physician. During the period of hospitalization, Hood claimed that he was suffering amnesia and that, although he could recall events after the accident and from his distant past, he had no memory of the period of eight to ten years immediately preceding the accident. He claimed that he could remember his wife only as a much younger person and his two teenage sons as very small boys.
On December 3, 1984, Hood filed his complaint in the Denver District Court, in which he alleged that his injuries were caused by Burlington's negligence in furnishing
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