Beech Aircraft Corporation v. Rainey, John C., et al. (488 U.S. 153)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 12, 1988 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 488 U.S. 153 · 109 S. Ct. 439
- Decided
- December 12, 1988
- Term
- October Term 1988
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Brennan
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court. In this action we address a longstanding conflict among the Federal Courts of Appeals over whether Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8)(C), which provides an exception to the hearsay rule for public investigatory reports containing “factual findings,” extends to conclusions and opinions contained in such reports. We also consider whether, on the facts of this litigation, the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to admit, on cross-examination, testimony intended to provide a more complete picture of a document about which the witness had testified on direct. I This litigation stems from the crash of a Navy training aircraft at Middleton Field, Alabama, on July 13, 1982, which took the lives of both pilots on board, Lieutenant Commander Barbara Ann Rainey and Ensign Donald Bruce Knowlton. The accident took place while Rainey, a Navy flight instructor, and Knowlton, her student, were flying “touch-and-go” exercises in a T-34C Turbo-Mentor aircraft, number 3E955. Their aircraft and several others flew in an oval pattern, each plane making successive landing/takeoff maneuvers on the runway. Following its fourth pass at the runway, 3E955 appeared to make a left turn prematurely, cutting out the aircraft ahead of it in the pattern and threatening a collision. After radio warnings from two other pilots, the plane banked sharply…
Excerpt of a 48,198-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.