This page within Virginia Tort Case Law is a compilation of cases reported by the Virginia Supreme Court and summarized by Brien Roche dealing with the topic of Hearsay Declaration Against Interest and the related topic of personal injury. For more information on hearsay see the pages on Wikipedia.
Hearsay Declaration Against Interest-Cases
2008 Ayala v. Aggressive Towing and Transport, 276 Va. 169, 661 S.E.2d 480.
In this auto accident case Defendant sought admission of plea of guilty of non-party. Such could only be admissible as a declaration against the penal interest of that non-party but Defendant must show unavailability. In this case, Defendant failed to use reasonable diligence to obtain live testimony of that non-party and as such the conviction is not admissible.
1951 Atlantic Coast Line R.R. v. Bowen, 192 Va. 162, 63 S.E.2d 804.
Elements: (1) declarant must be unavailable as witness; (2) statement must be contrary to pecuniary or proprietary interest of declarant; (3) must be relevant to issues in case. Where plaintiff is passenger in auto and driver is nonparty then statements by driver tending to indicate fault on his part are not relevant to issue of negligence of defendant. If driver was party then declarations would be admissible.
