Strudgeon v. Village of Sand Beach

65 N.W. 616, 107 Mich. 496, 1895 Mich. LEXIS 1182
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 24, 1895
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 65 N.W. 616 (Strudgeon v. Village of Sand Beach) 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
Strudgeon v. Village of Sand Beach, 65 N.W. 616, 107 Mich. 496, 1895 Mich. LEXIS 1182 (Mich. 1895).

Opinion

Montgomery, J.

This is an action to recover for injuries sustained by the plaintiff by means of a defective-sidewall!;. The plaintiff recovered, and defendant brings-error. The record contains 39 assignments of error, some of which have not been discussed in the brief of counsel. A large number are, however, relied upon. It would extend this opinion beyond any reasonable length to discuss in detail each of the assignments of error. It will suffice to say that, as to the points not specially discussed, we discover no error.

1. The declaration counted on a defective sidewalk in front of block 52, which was 264 feet in length; and plaintiff was permitted to give in evidence, against defendant’s objection, the generally defective condition of the sidewalk in front of this block and in the immediate vicinity of the place where the injury occurred. This-evidence was admissible for the purpose of showing-notice to the village authorities. Campbell v. City of Kalamazoo, 80 Mich. 660; O’Neil v. Village of West Branch, 81 Mich. 544; Edwards v. Village of Three Rivers, 102 Mich. 156; Fuller v. City of Jackson, 92 Mich. 197; Corcoran v. City of Detroit, 95 Mich. 84.

2. Plaintiff offered testimony to show that notice was given to the street commissioner that the walk from the schoolhouse to the village was in a dangerous condition. The walk from the schoolhouse to the village included the walk in question. The testimony was competent to show notice. It was for the jury to say whether, if the commissioner had acted on this information, the performance of his duty would have led to the discovery of the defect in question.

3. At the conclusion of the testimony of Dr. Davis, who [499]*499was examined in behalf of the plaintiff, the defendant requested the court to make an order requiring the plaintiff to submit to an examination as to the condition of his arm; such examination to be made by Drs. Davis, Oldfield, and Wagener, who were the physicians employed by the plaintiff in treating the arm when it was. injured. The plaintiff consented that an examination be made in open court, provided -no anaesthetics or drugs or harsh methods were used; but defendant insisted that the examination should not be made in open court, and that the physicians should take such means as they deemed necessary to make a complete examination. It was apparent from the testimony of the physicians that they deemed it necessary to administer anaesthetics in order to make a complete examination. We think the circuit judge was right in refusing to require the plaintiff to submit to the administration of anaesthetics. As was said in Graves v. City of Battle Creek, 95 Mich. 266, the circuit judge is, in such cases, vested with a large discretion ; and we all agree that it would have been an abuse of such discretion to make the order asked for.

'4. Error is assigned on a ruling permitting the witness John Strudgeon to testify to exclamations of pain made during the pendency of the action. The general rule is. well settled that declarations of present suffering are admissible in evidence, and are not objectionable as hearsay, so long as they do not amount to narrations of past conditions. Johnson v. McKee, 27 Mich. 471; Mayo v. Wright, 63 Mich. 32; Lacas v. Railway Co., 92 Mich. 412; Girard v. City of Kalamazoo, Id. 610. But it is insisted that a different rule obtains where the exclamations are made during the pendency of the case, or after a controversy has arisen; and defendant’s counsel rely upon Grand Rapids, etc., R. Co. v. Huntley, 38 Mich. 537. In that case the testimony which was held inadmissible related to exclamations or statements of suffering made by the plaintiff at the time she was undergoing an examina[500]*500tion by a physician, who was called in the expectation that he would give testimony on the trial as to the results of the examination. The court said:

“We cannot think it safe to receive such statements, which are made for the very purpose of getting up testimony, and not under ordinary circumstances. The physicians here were not called in to aid or give medical treatment. * * They were sent for merely to enable the plaintiff to prove her case. The whole course of the plaintiff was taken to no other end. She had in her mind just what expressions her cause required. They were, therefore, made under a strong temptation to feign suffering, if dishonest, and a hardly less strong tendency, if honest, to imagine or exaggerate it.”

Defendant’s counsel also cite Laughlin v. Street Railway Co., 80 Mich. 154. In that case, although the opinion does not fully set out the facts, the record shows that the exclamations of pain were made in the presence of one who had been asked to become a witness for the plaintiff, and who was called to testify to exclamations of pain made on substantially the same occasion; thus bringing the facts within the Huntley case. In the same line is Jones v. Village of Portland, 88 Mich. 598. But the court never has laid down the rule that such exclamations would be excluded solely for the reason that they were made after the controversy, and after the suit was commenced. In the present case the exclamations were made by a child of tender years, in his own home, and not in the presence of any medical attendant, and under circumstances which indicated that they were natural and ordinary exclamations of pain, called out by the suffering of the plaintiff, and not by any motive of making testimony for himself.

5. One Upton was a witness for the defense, and testified that he saw the plaintiff when he fell, and that his fall resulted from slipping on the walk; that he did not step in a hole in the walk, as he claimed, and that there was no hole there. He was asked on cross-examination [501]*501if, on the 3d of November preceding the trial, he had not had a talk with Frank Pawlowski at Boman Jaroszewski’s meat market. He answered that he had spoken of it at his place, but did not remember whether Pawlowski was present or not. He then further testified as follows:

“Q. Now, during the same day, and shortly after-wards, did you see William Strudgeon upon the street at Leszezynski’s corner, in Sand Beach?
“A. I don’t know him, that I know of.
“Q. Did you meet any person there at the corner of Leszezynski’s, and tell him that you saw the boy fall in a hole in the sidewalk five' or six rods east of the corner of Fifth street?
“A. I never did. I never had any conversation with any person on the corner of Leszezynski’s, to my knowledge.”

On rebuttal Frank Pawlowski testified under objection as follows:

“I recollect a conversation that occurred between the witness Upton and William Strudgeon on the 3d of November last. It was on the corner at Leszezynski’s store.
“Q. At that time, did the witness Upton say to William Strudgeon that he saw the boy, Johnnie Strudgeon, fall in a hole five or six rods east of Fifth street?
“A. Yes, sir.”

The objection was that the attention of the witness Upton was not properly called to the conversation.

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Bluebook (online)
65 N.W. 616, 107 Mich. 496, 1895 Mich. LEXIS 1182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/strudgeon-v-village-of-sand-beach-mich-1895.