Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Rubaiz

187 P. 568, 21 Ariz. 221, 1920 Ariz. LEXIS 95
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 2, 1920
DocketCivil No. 1741
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 187 P. 568 (Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Rubaiz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Rubaiz, 187 P. 568, 21 Ariz. 221, 1920 Ariz. LEXIS 95 (Ark. 1920).

Opinion

CUNNINGHAM, C. J.

On this appeal the appellant contends that the only evidence sustaining the verdict and judgment is contained in the testimony of the plaintiff given in her own behalf. I quote from appellant’s brief, to wit:

“And that the evidence of the plaintiff as to the happening of the accident, and the result of it, is of so contradictory and unsatisfactory character as not to constitute any substantial evidence.”

We are requested to disregard all of plaintiff’s testimony as unworthy of belief for that reason, and, having disregarded her testimony, to hold that there is no substantial evidence in the record to sustain the verdict and judgment. This is a request for this court to weigh the evidence of the plaintiff and to substitute our judgment of its weight for that of the trial court. This we refuse to do, as we have refused in like instances so often that we do not wish to give space to citation of the cases. See the rule stated in Roullier v. Schuster & Co., 18 Ariz. 175, 176, 157 Pac. 976.

The appellant asserts that the complaint sets forth as an element of damages recoverable:

“That by negligence of the defendant, and as a direct result thereof, she [plaintiff] suffered a recurrence of tuberculosis of the lungs. That there was no substantial evidence produced to show that her condition was the result .of the injury instead of the usual natural progress of the disease itself, and therefore there was a failure to establish her case.”

[224]*224An examination of the evidence will disclose substantial but conflicting evidence tending to prove that the plaintiff did or did not suffer a recurrence of tuberculosis of the lungs from the injury. Evidence tending to show that the probabilities are that plaintiff’s condition after the accident resulted from the natural progress of the disease, and not as a direct result of the accident, was met by other evidence tending to show that sometimes a violent personal injury directly causes a recurrence of tuberculosis of the lungs in cases where the disease has been dormant for a period of time.

The jury had before them the testimony of expert witnesses and the satisfactory evidence that this person had become a very sick person from tuberculosis of the lungs shortly after the' accident. No causes other than the accident or the natural progress of the disease have been suggested for the serious condition of the plaintiff subsequent to the accident. The verdict determined that the accident was the efficient proximate cause of the recurrence of the disease in an active form, and that determination is sustained by the evidence in this respect, although conflicting.

The principal controversy is presented by the third assignment of error. That assignment is as follows:

“That the court erred in instructing the jury that, if the jury found that plaintiff’s disease had been aggravated by the injury, she could recover, in that said instruction was outside the pleadings and not included therein; . . . the plaintiff did not sue nor claim compensation for aggravating or making worse an existing présent disease, but for bringing back and giving her anew a disease of which she was then at the time of the accident free.”

The instruction pertains to the extent of the resultant injuries and not to the negligence causing those injuries. Appellant’s position on this assignment is made plain in its reply brief, It states briefly that — ;

[225]*225“What we do contend is, and that is the situation here, that when the plaintiff has seen fit to particularize and claim damages for certain set forth injuries, that in such a case the plaintiff is limited to his recovery to the particular injuries alleged. . . . First, we would call attention to the point made here, that this is a matter of pleading.”

Hence the appellant construes the complaint as one limiting the plaintiff’s recovery to the particular injury alleged to have resulted in primarily afflicting plaintiff with the disease of pulmonary tuberculosis. Appellant contends that common understanding of the allegations of the complaint is that plaintiff was free from the disease with which she had been afflicted, and that the accident brought on the disease anew. As a consequence, in instances where the court instructed the jury to the effect that plaintiff could recover damages suffered because of the aggravation of said disease, the court thereby erroneously informed the jury that a recovery may be had upon proof of resultant injuries other than the particular resultant injury set forth in the complaint. ■

In the complaint, paragraph 3, the circumstances leading up to the accident are set forth, and it is then alleged that—

Plaintiff was “violently thrown from said car to the ground and [she] thereby sustained the following injuries, to wit: She was greatly injured, jarred, shaken, and bruised in body; and her nervous system thereby sustained such a shock as to seriously and permanently injuriously affect and derange her physical health, as hereinafter more particularly set forth.”

Appellant has considered that the clause last quoted qualifies the preceding words of the sentence as to all of the alleged injuries. Clearly, the pleader had in mind more injuries than one when he constructed the sentences. He said: “She thereby sustained the following ‘injuries,’ ” specifying injuries [226]*226resulting from jars, shakes and bruises of the body, and injuries resulting from shock to the nervous system. The last he promised to specify more particularly in the succeeding portions of the complaint. The particular injuries resulting from the shock to her nervons system are alleged to have consisted of a recurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis — a permanent injury to plaintiff’s health.

A fair understanding of the complaint with regard to particularizing the element of damages alleged to have resulted from the- shock to plaintiff’s nervous system is that the plaintiff means to claim damages for the resultant recurrence, the recrudescence, the “lighting up” of the pulmonary tuberculosis germs lying dormant in plaintiff’s system at the time she suffered the injuries, shocks, jars and bruises from the fall off the car. The meaning of the complaint, when considered as a whole, is that plaintiff had suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis and had reached a state of health considered by her as a good state of health; that she no longer suffered from active indications as symptoms of such disease; but that such disease lay inactive, and she was no longer liable to a recurrence of such active symptoms.

She uses some indefinite and uncertain expressions, but the dominant idea running through the complaint is that the principal injury inflicted upon her directly by the accident to her is the lighting up anew of the inactive, disintegrating germs of the “white plague” —pulmón ary tuberculosis — which lay dormant in her system at the time of the injury. The complaint cannot be confined to meaning that the accident originally infected plaintiff with pulmonary tuberculosis. Appellant seeks to give that meaning to the complaint because plaintiff states that she had had good health for a period of years and “was entirely free from any recurrence of said disease.” At most, such [227]*227language is expressive of the pleader’s conclusion of the state of her health.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
187 P. 568, 21 Ariz. 221, 1920 Ariz. LEXIS 95, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tucson-rapid-transit-co-v-rubaiz-ariz-1920.