Board of Education v. King

WILSON, J.

I concur in the judgment solely by reason of the provision of section 755 of the Vehicle Code that “No record of the conviction of any person for any violation of this code, . . . shall be admissible as evidence in any court in any civil action.” Since that section renders the judgment of respondent’s conviction inadmissible and since there was no other evidence that he had violated any provision of that code, the judgment must be affirmed for that reason alone.

The general statement in the majority opinion to the effect that a judgment of conviction is inadmissible in a civil proceeding to establish the truth of the facts upon which the criminal action was predicated is not warranted by the authorities and, in the absence of a differentiation of the situation in the instant case from that in the cases cited, will inevitably lead to confusion.

In each of the cases of Marceau v. Travelers’ Ins. Co., 101 Cal. 338 [35 P. 856, 36 P. 813], and Burke v. Wells, Fargo & Co., 34 Cal. 60, cited in the majority opinion, the person convicted of the crime was not a party to nor involved in the civil action in which the record of conviction was offered in evidence and was not in privity with either of the parties. The record of conviction was held in each instance to be inadmissible to prove an issue arising between the parties to the respective actions. In the Marcean case the issue was whether the convicted person was insane at the time of the murder. In the Burke ease the question was whether the person who had pleaded guilty had actually committed the crime.

These cases are not authority for a statement that the record of conviction of a person in a criminal case is never admissible against the same party in a civil action in which the same facts or acts are involved. It is the rule ttiat where a person has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge and is later a party to a civil action growing out of the same acts the record of the plea of guilty may be received in evidence not as a judgment establishing the fact but as an admission against interest—a solemn confession of the very matter charged in the civil action. (Langensand v. Obert, 129 Cal.App. 214, 218 [18 P.2d 725] ; Burbank v. McIntyre, 135 Cal.App. 482, 486 [27 P.2d 400], and cases cited.) These decisions obviously have no application to the instant case since it is not alleged that respondent pleaded guilty to the crime with which he was charged. They are mentioned only for the purpose of showing that the statement in the majority opinion is more inclusive than the citations warrant. Its applicability should not be extended beyond permissive bounds but should be limited to the class of cases to which it belongs.