Lake Shore & Michigan Southern R. R. Co. v. Yokes

12 Ohio C.C. 499
CourtOhio Circuit Courts
DecidedOctober 15, 1895
StatusPublished

This text of 12 Ohio C.C. 499 (Lake Shore & Michigan Southern R. R. Co. v. Yokes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Circuit Courts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lake Shore & Michigan Southern R. R. Co. v. Yokes, 12 Ohio C.C. 499 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1895).

Opinion

Laubie J.

This is a proceeding brought to reverse the judgment of the court below in an action wherein Mrs. Yokes was plaintiff, and the company was defendant, to recover for injuries to her person received in a collision between a passenger and freight train upon the defendant’s road. This collision occurred on the 5th day of August, 1889, and the injuries complained of, as stated in the petition, are that while sitting in the car, and at the time of the collision, she was thrown forward violently upon the seat in front of her, and on the re-bound against the seat she was sitting in, and forward again onto the seat in front; that she was struck violently on the bowels and side, and thereby sustained a great shock, concussion and injury to her stomach, bowels and uterus and appendages thereto, and to her spine and nervous system, causing spinal irritation and nervous prostration, which shortly thereafter developed into uterine trouble and general debility, with reflex [501]*501heart affection, from which injuries she has been unable to obtain any relief, and her condition has so continued, and will so long as she shall live. The petition also alleges that before that time plaintiff was a healthy woman, and had not suffered from these complaints.

The defendant company answered, admitting that it was a corporation; that it was operating the road in question; that plaintiff had purchased a ticket, and was a passenger on the line of the road, the 5th day of August, 1889, and that the stations of Williamsfield and Andover are regular stations on the line of the road, but denied all other allegations in the petition. And upon these issues the case was tried, and resulted in a verdict of $7585,. 50, for the plaintiff below. It is now sought to have this judgment set aside upon the ground of error in the charge of the court; that the verdict was contrary to the evidence and the law, and for error of .the court in regard to the admission and exclusion of testimony during the trial.

The court charged the jury that the fact being shown of a collision between the trains of the company, was evidence of negligence upon its part; and that is the law as we understand it. Two trains coming together on the same track, —a head collision — is prima facie proof of negligence on the part of the company, and the court therefore committed no error in so charging.

Upon the second exception, that the verdict is against the evidence, there is doubt. Under the evidence it was a very close question, whether the plaintiff had been injured in that accident or not. But that is not ground sufficient for us to upset the verdict of the jury; a mere difference of opinion upon a conflict of evidence alone, would not justify us in setting the verdict aside. The next exception is as to the testimony of Dr. Bracken.

. Dr. Bracken was called to see plaintiff some three years [502]*502after the injury and prescribed for her, and this question was put to him in chief:

Q. When you were called to see Mrs. Yokes, were you informed as to her having been injured in a railroad collision,and what was said about it? (Defendant objects; objection overruled. Defendant excepts.)

A. I was informed by her that about four years ago she had been injured in a railroad collision. I understood was some where north of where she resides, and she said she had not seen a well day since, and thought it was the cause of her present trouble. (Defendant objects, and asks that the answer be excluded. Objection overruled. Defendant excepts.)

The answer gives merely the statement of the plaintiff —not anything that the witness had ascertained himself, but the statement of the plaintiff. Perhaps the question called for that, and it was therefore objected to, but at least the answer gave it simply as her statement, and that answer was asked to be excluded, the request overruled and exception taken. The admission of this testimony opened the door for all that followed, and a great deal of the same kind did follow. It opened the door for the testimony of Dr. McCurdy, who went into the statement of the plaintiff in regard to her condition, symptoms, sensations, seat of pain, cause of the accident, although he was called as an expert merely, and had examined her for the purpose of becoming a witness; and although there was no specific objection to some of it, it was not necessary for the defendant below to continue to object to that class of testimony; once was sufficient. Indeed, where objection is once made,and the court has established a rule, some courts assert that it is impertinent in counsel to continue objecting.

A physician in a case like this, although called to treat the plaintiff, can only testify to what the plaintiff said as to her physical condition, symptoms, sensations and seat of disease. If this be the rule, then, what was admitted here [503]*503in Ur. Bracken’s testimony was improper, because it is not a statement of the plaintiff as to her physical condition, her symptoms, sensations, or the seat of the disease, but it is a recital of how the injury was caused of which she wás complaining, and that she had not seen a well day since that injury, and that she attributed her condition to the injury, or that that was the cause.

Chapin v. Marborough, 9 Gray, 244, was an action of tort for injuries received by plaintiff, on the 11th day of January, 1856, from a defect in a highway. At the trial the plaintiff called a physician, who testified that he saw the plaintiff for the first time on the 2nd day of June, 1856, and that the plaintiff showed him his leg,and wished him to examine it. That the plaintiff complained of extreme pain in the leg, and said he had been struck by a horse some number of months before, four or five months before, on that leg. To this narration the defendants objected, but the court admitted the testimony. The verdict was for the plaintiff, and the defendant alleged exception. Metcalf J: “The exception must be sustained,which was taken to the admission of the plaintiff’s statement to his physician that his leg had been struck by a horse. It was a statement of a fact, and was used as evidence of that fact. It was therefore wrongly admitted. The rule of evidence in cases like this, was rightly announced by Mr. Justice Biglow, in Bacon v. Charlton, 7 Cush. 586, as follows: ‘Where the bodily or mental feelings of a party are to be proved, the usual and natural expression of such feelings made at the time are considered competent and original evidence in his favor. There are ills and pains of the body, which are proper subjects of proofs in courts of Justice, which can be shown in no other way. Such evidence, however,is not to be extended beyond the necessity on which the rule is founded. Anything in the nature of narration or statement, is to be carefully excluded,and the testimony is to be confined strictly to such [504]*504complaints, exclamations and expressions as usually and naturally accompany and furnish evidence of present existing pain or malady.’ The defendants are entitled to a new trial in consequence of the admission of the plaintiff’s statement,”

The Inhabitants of Ashland v. The Inhabitants of Marborough, 99 Mass. 47, was an action to recover money expened in supporting William H. Mainard and his family, and it involved ¿he question whether he was suffering from a disease pyio\ to having -been mustered into the serviee, in July, Í861, So that his bodily condition was the subject of investigation.

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Bluebook (online)
12 Ohio C.C. 499, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lake-shore-michigan-southern-r-r-co-v-yokes-ohiocirct-1895.