“Guilty of Suppressio Veri”

George Bellows, Dempsey v. Firpo, 1924

Let us all hope that the linked recent Court of Appeals decision against Rochester City Lines (“RCL”) is the terminus of this excruciating litigation road-trip.

RCL seems to have had a pretty sweet deal, a contract to provide bussing with the city of Rochester for 46 years. It is putting it mildly to suggest that RCL was unwilling to give up this relationship without a fight. The contract was put out for bid and RCL lost to another company but, with several years of on-going litigation, it went down swinging.

This litigation, over six years old, with a number of round-trips to the appellate courts. It almost seems like a bus of process.

We found footnote 3 on page 10 worth highlighting for the Court’s use of the somewhat obscure expression, “suppressio veri,” as in, “If that were the case, RCL’s attorney would seem to be guilty of suppressio veri…” (“suppression of the truth,” better known as lying? Or misleading by omission?).

The Court explains this concept by example: “It would be similar to a court asking someone, ‘Did you kill her?’ and the person responding, ‘I wasn’t there,’ when that person had in fact hired someone else to kill her.”