West Chicago Street Railroad v. McCallum

48 N.E. 424, 169 Ill. 240
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 8, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 48 N.E. 424 (West Chicago Street Railroad v. McCallum) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
West Chicago Street Railroad v. McCallum, 48 N.E. 424, 169 Ill. 240 (Ill. 1897).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Boggs

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Court for the First District, affirming a judgment of the Superior Court of Cook county in favor of the appellee in the sum of $2000, for personal injuries sustained by her through the alleged negligence of the servants of the appellant company in the management of one of appellant’s street cars, whereby she was struck and injured by said cars at a street crossing.

At the close of the testimony on behalf of the plaintiff below the Superior Court overruled the motion of the defendant company to direct the jury to find the defendant not guilty, and such ruling of the court is assigned as error. Any complaint which the appellant company might justly have made against the ruling of the court must be regarded as waived, for the reason it did not abide by the motion, but proceeded to introduce witnesses in its own behalf to contradict the case made by plaintiff. Chicago and Great Western Railroad Co. v. Wedel, 144 Ill. 9; Harris v. Shebek, 151 id. 287.

At the close of the testimony for both parties in the case the cause was submitted to the jury for decision, and the appellant, among other instructions presented to the court to be given to the jury, asked the following:

11. “The court instructs the jury to find the defendant not guilty.”

The court refused to grant the instruction, and the appellant company preserved an exception. The purport of the instruction was to ask the court to determine the evidence was insufficient to warrant the submission of the case to the jury. But the appellant company had, before asking the instruction, joined in submitting the case to the jury, and could not therefore be allowed to withdraw the submission and insist there was nothing for a jury to determine. If it was the design of the appellant, in presenting the instruction, to preserve for review in this court the question whether, as matter of law, the evidence justified the submission of the case to a jury, it should, at the close of all the evidence, have presented to the court a written instruction asking that the evidence be excluded and the jury directed to return a verdict in its favor. (Vallette v. Bilinski, 167 Ill. 564; Peirce v. Walters, 164 id. 560.) We cannot agree the court erred,in refusing to give the instruction under consideration.

The court instructed the jurjr that if they should find the issues for the plaintiff, then, in determining the amount of the damages, they might take into consideration such prospective suffering and loss of health, if any, as the jury might believe, from all of the evidence before them in the case, she had sustained or will sustain by reason of such injury, if any. The complaint as to this instruction is, no allegation of prospective suffering is made in the declaration. During the course of the trial leave was given the appellee to amend the declaration so as to include this element of damage, but the amendment was not actually made. Therefore, in this court the declaration stands as originally written, and must be so treated by us. Wisconsin Central Railroad Co. v. Wieczorek, 151 Ill. 579.

The allegations of the declaration with respect to the point under consideration are as follows: “The plaintiff was then and there thrown, with great force and violence, from and out of the said carriage to and upon the ground, and the plaintiff was thereby then and there greatly bruised, hurt and wounded, and her sight of both eyes was greatly impaired, and she became sick, sore, lame and disordered and her sight of both eyes greatly impaired, and so remained for a long space of time, to-wit, hitherto, during all of which time she, the plaintiff, suffered great pain, and was hindered and prevented from attending to and transacting her affairs and business, and by means of the premises the plaintiff was forced to and did lay out divers large sums of money, to-wit, the sum of §1000, in and about endeavoring to be cured of her said wounds, hurts and bruises and impaired eyesight, occasioned as aforesaid.”

In the case of Eagle Packet Co.y. Defries, 94 Ill. 598, which was an action on the case to recover damages for personal injuries, the allegation of the declaration was, “the plaintiff then and there became and was sick, lame and disordered, and so remained for a long time, to-wit, hitherto,” and it was assigned for error the instructions authorized the jury to award damages for permanent injury, for the reason the declaration did not allege the plaintiff had suffered permanent injury, and the court said (p. 603): “The permanency of plaintiff’s injury was merely evidence to be considered by the jury in determining the severity of the plaintiff’s sickness, lameness and disorder, and the rules of pleading do not require the plaintiff to set forth in his declaration the evidence upon which he relies.” The same principle is declared in City of Chicago v. McLean, 133 Ill. 148, and in 5 Ency. of Pl. & Pr. 747.

Complaint is made of the third instruction given on behalf of the appellee. The purport of this instruction was, that “both plaintiff and defendant were equally in the position of right to use the public thoroughfare upon which the plaintiff was driving and the defendant was operating its cars, which right they held and enjoyed independently of each other, provided each exercised ordinary care in the use of the street.” The specific complaint is, the effect of the proviso was to declare, if the defendant did not use ordinary care in the use of the street it-thereby lost the right of user. The proviso was added by the court, and for the manifest purpose of advising the jury that the existence of the right to use the street did not absolve the parties, or either of them, from the duty of using ordinary care for their own safety and the safety of others while exercising such right. The criticism advanced, that the instruction declared to the jury that if the appellant company failed to exercise such ordinary care it was thereby deprived of the right to use the thoroughfare and became a trespasser upon the highway, finds no support except in a strained and unreasonable construction of the language employed. The proviso has reference to the exercise of the right—not the existence thereof.

It is complained other instructions were given authorizing the jury to find for the plaintiff if they found the evidence supported her cause, the specific ground of the objection being, there was no evidence tending to show either that the appellee, on the occasion in question, exercised due care for her own safety, or that the employees of the appellant company failed to use ordinary care in the management of the car.

We find evidence in the record tending to show the following state of facts: Appellee was riding alone, in a one-horse buggy having a top, northwardly on California avenue, in the city of Chicago. Appellant operates a double track line of cable street cars on Madison street, which runs east and west and intersects California avenue at right angles. Appellee approached this street crossing from the south as a train of appellant’s cars approached it from the west. Another conveyance northwardly bound —a two-liorse, two-seated vehicle—was standing on California avenue awaiting the passage of appellant’s eastbound train.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Trust Co. v. Richardson
8 N.E.2d 530 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1937)
Fournier v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
148 A. 147 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 1929)
O'Connor v. Messenger
183 Ill. App. 1 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1913)
Chandler v. Illinois Central Railroad
171 Ill. App. 240 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1912)
Stack v. East St. Louis & Suburban Railway Co.
152 Ill. App. 613 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1910)
Smythe v. Charles P. Parish & Co.
86 N.E. 754 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1908)
Savage v. Chicago & Joliet Railway Co.
142 Ill. App. 342 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1908)
Smythe v. Charles P. Parish & Co.
140 Ill. App. 405 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1908)
Larsen v. Chicago Union Traction Co.
131 Ill. App. 286 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1907)
Scanlan v. Chicago Union Traction Co.
127 Ill. App. 406 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1906)
Hubbard v. Perlie
25 App. D.C. 477 (D.C. Circuit, 1905)
Knights Templars & Masons Life Indemnity Co. v. Crayton
70 N.E. 1066 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1904)
Springer v. Schultz
105 Ill. App. 544 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1903)
West Chicago Street Railroad v. Petters
63 N.E. 662 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1902)
Chicago City Railway Co. v. Tuohy
58 L.R.A. 270 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1902)
West Chicago St. R. R. v. Huhnke
82 Ill. App. 404 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1899)
West Chicago St. R. R. v. Lups
74 Ill. App. 420 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1898)
Alton Paving, Building & Fire Brick Co. v. Hudson
74 Ill. App. 612 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1898)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
48 N.E. 424, 169 Ill. 240, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/west-chicago-street-railroad-v-mccallum-ill-1897.