The facts of the civil trial are that the plaintiff has an injury that came about from a visit to an amusement park. The plaintiff received an injury to his hands, neck and chest while on one of the amusement park rides. The plaintiff has sued the amusement park management, the defendant for the case, for damages sustained by him while using their facilities. The court system that will be used to hear the dispute between the plaintiff and the amusement park will be a federal district court because federal courts are mainly focused on civil procedure. The court system is also suitable for settling the dispute because of the aspect of limited jurisdiction which allows the system to hear a certain category of cases or disputes.
The jurisdiction of the plaintiff to sue the defendant will be limited because the defendant, the amusement park management, is based in another state. This will create a situation where the plaintiff’s home state district courts lack personal jurisdiction to hear the case. The plaintiff therefore has to settle for a federal district court venue that will subject the defendant to its sovereign legal system.
The accident occurred in Pennsylvania where the amusement park is based while the hometown of the plaintiff is in Georgia. The interest of the state of Pennsylvania will be higher than that of Georgia because the injuries were sustained in Pennsylvania. The distance from Pennsylvania to Georgia is not that far, so the plaintiff will be compelled to demonstrate that he can travel to the Pennsylvania district court for the hearing of the case. The venue of the federal court in Pennsylvania will also be suitable because of the jurisdiction of the district where the defendant resides or is based and also because the substantial part of the events that led to the plaintiff sustaining injuries to his body occurred in Pennsylvania. The plaintiff has sued the amusement part for $ 1 million in damages, a sum that includes hospital bills incurred by the plaintiff for his injuries. The defendant’s main argument for the case is that the testimony and evidence given by the plaintiff is mostly hearsay and should therefore not be admissible in court.
The defendant’s attorney claims that the testimony given by the plaintiff was mostly spontaneous declarations which should not be admissible in court. The defense claims that the original statement made by the plaintiff should be viewed as hearsay because it was made under contemptuous circumstances which saw the plaintiff getting injuries to his neck, hands and chest. The defense’s argument is that the statement should be withdrawn and all compensation charges placed on the defendant be dropped because of the hearsay testimony of the plaintiff.
The rule of hearsay is deemed to have little or no application in a civil trial with the common law stating that any additional statement other than the one given by the witness while giving a testimony in the court proceedings will be inadmissible as evidence. However, according to the Civil Evidence Act 1995, s 1(1), civil trial proceedings will not exclude any evidence that is deemed to be based on the grounds of hearsay. This will ensure that hearsay evidence given in a civil case trial will be admissible. The plaintiff’s testimony will therefore be admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule and will be used in the hearing of the case.