Quinby v. Burmeister

In Quinby v. Burmeister, 2004 PA Super 135, 850 A.2d 667 (Pa. Super. 2004), Superior Court held that the exclusion of videotaped testimony from a decedent party who was a quadriplegic, on the basis that it may engender sympathy for the deceased witness/party, was an abuse of discretion; only the prejudicial portions of the video testimony should have been excluded, in order to allow the jury to assess the decedent's credibility. In Quinby, the Supreme Court found an abuse of discretion where the evidence was found inadmissible based upon the sympathy that may have been engendered due to that witness's disabled condition. However, in this matter the Trial Court found that Harris's testimony was inadmissible on the grounds that the witness's own testimony, where it was clear in the first person, was unreliable, self-conflicting, and contradictory. R.R. at 173a. Further, and not insignificantly, the Trial Court found that the witness's mother and sister were unreliable in their roles as interpreters, adding more to short answers provided by the witness herself, and appearing to give their own opinions of the witness's answers when those answers were indiscernible. Id.