Fuller v. Mayor of Jackson

52 N.W. 1075, 92 Mich. 197, 1892 Mich. LEXIS 851
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedJune 10, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 52 N.W. 1075 (Fuller v. Mayor of Jackson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fuller v. Mayor of Jackson, 52 N.W. 1075, 92 Mich. 197, 1892 Mich. LEXIS 851 (Mich. 1892).

Opinion

Morse, C. J.

This case has been in this Court once-before, and will be found reported in 82 Micb. 480. The situation of tbe premises and tbe cause of the injury to plaintiff are sufficiently stated in tbe opinion filed by Mr. Justice Grant upon tbe first bearing in this Court. Upon a second trial tbe plaintiff recovered a judgment, and tbe case is again brought here by tbe defendant upon error. Many of tbe questions now argued were settled by this Court in tbe opinion above noticed. We [199]*199shall only discuss the errors assigned which were not before us when the case was here before. •

The court below was requested to direct a verdict for the defendant. Under this request the defendant's counsel, apparently for the first time, make the point that the declaration contained no averment that the street wherein the injury was received had been a public highway or street for a period of 10 years, and also that there was no proof showing such to be a fact. There was proof tending to' show that Pearl street, where the accident happened, had been for more than 10 years a public highway. This averment was not necessary in this case under the statute,1 section four of which provides that—

“ The provisions of this act shall not apply to public highways which have not been in use ten years; but nothing in this section shall be construed as exempting townships, villages, and cities from maintaining their streets, bridges, sidewalks, cross-walks, and culverts, and the approaches to bridges, in a safe condition for public, travel.”

It will be seen by this proviso that the 10-years use-applies only to public highways in townships. A city is'bound to keep a sidewalk in safe condition for public-travel from the time it is built and opened for travel-The case of Clark v. Village of North Muskegon. 88 Mich. 308, was decided by us without a careful examination of the statute, as it was conceded by plaintiff upon the argument that it was necessary to prove on the trial the existence of the street for the period of 10 years.

The declaration in this case averred that, by reason of her fall, plaintiff sustained “serious, dangerous, and permanent injuries to her spine and coccyx, and was then and there otherwise greatly bruised, wounded, and injured, and became and was sick, sore, lame, and disordered.” There was no allegation that she had any difficulty with [200]*200her breast which was aggravated by the injury. TJpon her cross-examination defendant’s counsel undertook to show that plaintiff was diseased before her fall upon the sidewalk; that she had been afflicted for years with an evil of the breast, which, at intervals, suppurated and discharged purulent matter, and which was discharging when she was first visited by physicians after her alleged injury. Evidence of expert witnesses was also introduced to show that this condition of the breast would be debilitating upon the system, and might produce septic or poisonous ■condition of the blood, and prevent or retard curing of the hurt to the spine caused by the fall. The plaintiff ■testified that she had trouble with her breast, caused by bruising it against the back of a chair; that it had healed up before this fall, and that the doctors said that there was nothing cancerous or poisonous about it, or anything that she need worry about; but that, after her fall, her breast broke out again. The plaintiff’s counsel thereupon endeavored to ‘show that this breaking out of the breast after the fall was caused by the fall, and introduced the testimony of experts tending to show it. Defendant met this by evidence of experts tending to show that the fall would not produce a mammary abscess. Defendant’s counsel requested the court to instruct the jury that, under the declaration, they could not give plaintiff damages for strain or other injury to her breast, or the sore or abscess thereon. The court did not give the request as presented, but in that regard said:

“In considering the question of damages, you are instructed that the plaintiff can only recover for such damages as the evidence shows resulted from the defendant’s neglect; and if she has suffered other injuries from any other cause, however serious they may be, or however great may be her misfortune and lamentable her situation, she cannot recover for them in this case. She cannot recover for any injuries to her breast, or the sore [201]*201or abscess thereon* unless such injuries may have been aggravated, under the evidence in this case* by the actions which resulted from the defendant’s neglect, if it did have the effect so to aggravate.”

This charge was erroneous. The plaintiff had not alleged in her declaration any strain or injury to her breast, or that she had trouble with or ailment of her breast that was aggravated by the fall upon the sidewalk. It is said by plaintiff’s counsel that this matter of breast trouble was brought into the case by the defendant. This is true, but it was brought in to account for the continued trouble with her spine, and the abscess supposed to have formed in the lower bowels or rectum, and it was legitimately in the case for that purpose, if the theory of the defendant was true; but it being brought into the case by the defendant for this purpose did not warrant the plaintiff to use it in aggravation of her damages, when there was no averment of any such claim of damages in her declaration. Shadock v. Plank Road Co., 79 Mich. 7.

In reference to the expert evidence of Dr. Slenou, we find no particular objection to the question asked of him, but it was impossible, it appears, for him to answer the question without adding to the • facts embodied in the question his own knowledge of the case. He substantially said that he was answering the question from his own knowledge of the case. This was not permissible, and the answer to the question should have been eliminated from the case. The record is quite blind as to whether it was or not. When a witness is speaking of his own professional knowledge of the condition of his patient, the opposing counsel has the opportunity to cross-examine him as to the details of that knowledge; but, when a hypothetical question is put to him, he should be confined to the facts as stated in such question, the same as if he had never seen the patient. If he is permitted [202]*202to inject facts into the question out of his own knowledge, and which he does without the knowledge of the-court or jury, the answer is misleading, and a hindrance! rather than an aid to justice. It cannot always be known when an expert witness does a thing of this kind, but. when it appears, as it did here, from his own frank statement, the answer to the question should be excluded at once, and any further answer of the witness to hypothetical questions taken with caution, if not rejected altogether, unless it can be made clearly to appear that, in such answer he acts upon the facts stated in such questions alone, and without recourse to facts within his. knowledge not embraced in such questions.

The testimony of Dr. Hodge, that the fall might aggravate the trouble in the breast, was admissible to refute-the defendant’s claim that it was a permanent ailment, affecting her whole system, and in corroboration of plaintiff’s testimony that it broke out because of said fall, but it could not be used to enhance the damages.

The plaintiff, according to her own testimony, was not injured by, to her, a perceptible defect in the walk.

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Bluebook (online)
52 N.W. 1075, 92 Mich. 197, 1892 Mich. LEXIS 851, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fuller-v-mayor-of-jackson-mich-1892.