McGrail v. City of Kalamazoo

53 N.W. 955, 94 Mich. 52, 1892 Mich. LEXIS 1077
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 22, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 53 N.W. 955 (McGrail v. City of Kalamazoo) 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
McGrail v. City of Kalamazoo, 53 N.W. 955, 94 Mich. 52, 1892 Mich. LEXIS 1077 (Mich. 1892).

Opinion

Long, J.

This suit was brought to recover for injuries received by plaintiff by falling upon an alleged defective ■sidewalk on May 10, 1890. It was contended by plaintiff that the sidewalk, at the place in question, was on that day, and had been for a long time prior thereto, in' a dangerous and unsafe condition. Her testimony showed that she was a large, fleshy woman, and while passing over the sidewalk, in company with two other ladies, owing to the defective condition of the walk, some of the planks therein being loose, she was tripped up and thrown violently to the ground, and received serious injuries, which are ■claimed to be of a permanent character. Under a very full charge of the court, the jury returned a verdict .against the plaintiff. The errors relied upon relate—

1. To the ruling of the court in sustaining the challenge for cause to two of the jurors, for the reason that they were over 60 years of age.
2. To the ruling of the court in refusing to allow certain testimony to be given, and in the reception of certain testimony.
3. To the ruling of the court in refusing to permit the plaintiff to put in evidence a certain stringer, which it is [54]*54claimed was taken from under the sidewalk in question.
4. To the refusal to give certain of plaintiff’s requests to charge, and to certain parts of the charge as given.

It appears that two of the jurors were over 60 years of age. They were both on the regular panel for the term. They were challenged by defendant’s counsel on account of their age, and the court excused them. It is insisted that this was error, and that this claim is within the ruling of this Court in People v. Rawn, 90 Mich. 377. In that case it was held that, though a juror was beyond the age of 60 years, he was not subject to challenge for cause, but that the exemption under the statute from service upon juries when beyond that age was only a personal privilege-of the juror. Error was assigned upon the ruling of the court in refusing to set the juror aside, upon a challenge for cause, upon the ground of his being beyond the age of 60 years. It was held not to be error, and the conviction was affirmed.

The question is not presented in this case in that form. Here the court sustained the challenge, and discharged the jurors from the panel. It appears that those persons were on the regular panel, and therefore it is claimed that, under section 7555, How. Stat., requiring the officers who make return of persons for jurors to the county clerk to select, the names from the assessment roll, and, in making such selection, to take the names of such only as are not exempt from serving on juries, and section 7571, expressly exempting persons over 60 years of age from serving as jurors, the plaintiff had no legal right to have these jurors on the panel to try the case, and their discharge by the court is no ground of error. We think counsel right in this contention. These jurors had a right to be discharged from the panel if they requested it themselves, as the statute expressly gave them the right; and while it would not have been error, as held in People v. Rawn, supra, for the court. [55]*55to refuse to set them aside on that ground when challenged for cause, it cannot be said that a party to a cause can claim the right to have persons above the age of 60 years sit as jurors in a cause, or, upon their discharge, have a verdict of another jury set aside, with whom he had expressed his satisfaction and before whom he had gone to trial. Especially is this true where it is not claimed that at that time the party had exhausted his peremptory challenges.

It is claimed that the court was in error in striking out the testimony of the witness Mary J. Briggs in regard to a fall she received upon the walk where plaintiff fell. It appeared upon cross-examination that she fell three or four days after the plaintiff received her injuries, and the court, struck out the testimony'for that reason. In Lombar v. Village of East Tawas, 86 Mich. 14, it was permitted to-be shown that others had stepped into the same hole prior to plaintiff's injury, for the purpose of showing the existence of the defect at the time the injury occurred; and it; was said that such evidence was competent, as it might; also tend to show constructive notice of the defect to the village. It was further said in that case that there was some conflict of authority even upon this right. We have been unable to find any case going beyond this ruling, and holding that a plaintiff upon such a trial might introduce proof that others fell or stepped into the hole after the injury occurred, even with a showing that it was in the same condition as when plaintiff was injured. The plaintiff's position here would carry the rule still' further, if her counsel's contention is correct. He asked to show that the witness fell on the same defective walk three or four days after plaintiff fell there. How she was walking, or whether using due care, would raise another issue. The injury to plaintiff was not in stepping through a hole in the walk, but in the tipping up of a loose plank; and [56]*56the question to the witness was not for the purpose of showing that she fell through the same hole that plaintiff fell through, as in the Lombar case and the cases there cited. The court properly excluded the testimony.

Several witnesses were sworn on the part of the defendant, and testified to having frequently passed over this walk. They were then asked whether, if there had been a loose plank there, they would have noticed it. This was admitted, under objection of plaintiff’s counsel. We think there was no error in admitting this testimony. There was no claim on the part of the plaintiff that the city had actual notice of the condition of the walk, but the plaintiff proceeded upon the theory that the defect had existed so long, and the walk was in such a bad state of repair, that the city ought to be charged with notice of the defect. In answer to this proposition, the testimony of these witnesses was proper.

A stringer was brought into court by the plaintiff. It was claimed that it came from under the defective walk, and had been taken out by the city in making repairs after plaintiff’s injury. The witness who produced it in court found it standing against the corner of a store near the defective walk. It was offered in evidence by the plaintiff. The court excluded it, on the ground that it had not been sufficiently identified as coming from under the defective walk. We need not recite the testimony here by which it is claimed that it was sufficiently identified. We are satisfied from it that its identification was not established, and the court very properly ruled against its admission.

Counsel asked the court to instruct the jury that there was no evidence of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff shown in the case. This was refused, and the court left the question of due care upon her part as a question of fact for the determination of the jury. The [57]*57•court was right in this. The jury should take into consideration the condition and situation of the walk, the time of day when plaintiff passed there, her knowledge of its condition, and other circumstances connected with her passage over it, and from these facts determine the care which the plaintiff exercised. The burden was upon her to show that she was exercising due care, and it was a question of fact to be found by the jury.

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Bluebook (online)
53 N.W. 955, 94 Mich. 52, 1892 Mich. LEXIS 1077, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcgrail-v-city-of-kalamazoo-mich-1892.