Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Lammert

12 Ill. App. 408, 1883 Ill. App. LEXIS 242
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedApril 13, 1883
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 12 Ill. App. 408 (Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Lammert) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Lammert, 12 Ill. App. 408, 1883 Ill. App. LEXIS 242 (Ill. Ct. App. 1883).

Opinion

Baker, P. J.

Action on the case for personal injuries, in which there was verdict and judgment for appellee for $5,000.

Objections are urged to some of the rulings of the court with reference to the admissibility of testimony, and these may briefly be considered.

There was no error in permitting Mary Staid, mother of appellee, who was a witness for him, to state she had lived in Venice sixteen years and made a living by keeping boarders. These preliminary questions as to age, residence and occupation are quite usually asked and are not considered objectionable. Indeed, the answers to them frequently serve a useful purpose bv affording court, jury and the opposite party and his attorneys the means of identifying the witness, and also' forming some idea with reference to the credit due from his or her position in society and surroundings. It was erroneous, however, to permit this witness to testify with regard to the expenses she liad sustained in attending to' and waiting on appellee, her infant son, as these expenses would not be recoverable in this action. The child, if injured by appellant’s fault, would properly have satisfaction in this suit for the pain, suffering and permanent injury; and the parent would have a right of action to recover compensation for loss of service and necessary expenses. The inclusion here of these expenses, would not bar her from obtaining remuneration for them in a different suit,‘and thus there might be a double recovery.

Considering the wide range the examination in chief of the witness Thomas had taken, and the latitude the court may in its discretion allow a cross-examination, we are inclined to hold the cross-interrogatories and answers excepted to were not improperly allowed to be read to the jury. Some of them, however, hardly seem to be germane to the issue.

Over the objections of appellant, Stites and Wilson, witnesses for appellee, were permitted to detail a conversation between one Tracey and said Stites, that occurred a year or more after the transactions involved in this controversy. It nowhere appears said Tracey was an agent of appellant, much less that he had authority to bind appellant by the statements and acts in question, that they were within the scope of his duty or employment. Chicago City R’y Co. v. McMahon, 103 Ill. 485, has no application to the facts of this case. This testimony was but hearsay, and should have been excluded.

It appears that Stites, the principal witness, had, a very few days after appellee was injured, signed a written statement of the occurrence, connected therewith, that was in conflict, on some material points, with the account he gave upon the witness stand. It was entirely proper to permit him to make an explanation, and due him he should have an opportunity. It was equally due appellant it should have been allowed to obtain on cross-examination an admission he had intentionally made a statement that was not true. The credibility of this witness, as of all others, was a question for the jury, and appellant was entitled to a concession from the witness himself he had intentionally made a false statement for purposes of deception. The ruling of the court on this point was wrong.

. The second instruction given for appellee improperly directs the jury, in estimating plaintiff’s damages, to take into consideration “ the expense, if any, that plaintiff was put to in medical bills or other expenses, if the jury believe from the evidence there were such bills and expenses.” Appellee was a minor, wholly supported by his widowed mother, and the evidence shows the expenses devolved on and were paid by her, and that no pecuniary outlay whatever had been imposed on him. The jury could only have understood this instruction as a license from the court to include in the assessment her expenditures occasioned by the injury, as there was no proof before them of expenditures other than these.

Appellee’s third instruction is erroneous in several respects. It informs the jury appellant is liable if appellee was hurt through the negligence of its employes while they were performing services within the scope of their employment. This is stated in general terms, and without any qualification or limitation whatever. The right of recovery should have been confined to the specific negligences and causes of action alleged in the declaration. The verdict may have been based upon an element of liability not involved in the case. There is, incidentally, in this record, testimony as to other supposed negligence not within the scope of the pleadings. C. C. & I. C. R’y Co. v. Troesch, 68 Ill. 545; Camp Pt. Mfg. Co. v. Ballou, 71 Id. 417; E. St. L. P. & P. Co. v. Hightower, 92 Id. 139.

Again, each count of the declaration avers appellee was exercising due care on his part when he was injured. The instruction wholly ignores the requirement appellee himself was exercising ordinary and reasonable care, unless it be held as matter of law the facts he was “ about ten years of age and deaf and dumb,” which are stated therein as facts precedent to a right of recovery, are conclusive he did exercise due care. But it is not an irrebuttable legal presumption that a deaf and dumb child ten years of age is wholly incapable of reasoning, of appreciating danger, and of exercising any degree of care whatever, and therefore is incapable of negligence and incapable of being a juridical cause of an injury. It must necessarily be a question of fact, and one to be submitted to the jury as such. Schmidt v. Sinnott, 103 Ill. 160.

We use the terms “ due care,” “ reasonable care ” and “ ordinary care ” as synonymous, and a plaintiff can in no case recover for an injury to his person without he was in the exercise of this “ due care ” himself. C. B. & Q. R. R. Co. v. Johnson, 103 Ill. 512. The law is just, and requires impossibilities of no one. Only that care and caution is required of a child he is capable of using, and that it is reasonable to expect from and is usually found in a child of his age and mental capacity, possessed of like faculties for the perception and appreciation of danger, and placed in like circumstances. If he uses such care as this, then he uses what is, as to him, “ due care.” If he is wholly devoid of power to appreciate danger or exercise any degree of care whatever, then he is non sui juris, and of such nothing is required; and mere proof he is such, is proof of “ due care.” The instruction should have been so framed as to have required the jury to find as matter of fact appellee had used due care, that is to say, such care as the law, under all the circumstances, imposed upon him.

The most serious objection, however, to the judgment is that the record is wholly devoid of evidence to support several of the material facts alleged in the declaration. When the case was here before upon a demurrer to the declaration, we laid stress, in reversing the judgment of the circuit court, upon the fact it was averred in the declaration that at the time the train was started, plaintiff was upon the car with the knowledge of the servants of the company then operating the train, and with the permission of the company. We fail to find evidence to sustain either of these facts so alleged.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
12 Ill. App. 408, 1883 Ill. App. LEXIS 242, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-alton-railroad-v-lammert-illappct-1883.