Williamson v. Cambridge R. Co.
| Citation | 144 Mass. 148,10 N.E. 790 |
| Parties | ELIZABETH R. WILLIAMSON v. CAMBRIDGE R. CO. GEORGE WILLIAMSON v. SAME. |
| Decision Date | 26 February 1887 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Tort to recover damages for personal injuries to the plaintiff in the first action, and in the second to recover damages for loss of services of the plaintiff's wife, and expense of her care and cure. Both actions were tried together. At the trial in superior court, before MASON, J., plaintiffs introduced evidence tending to show that defendant's horse car, (it being an open car,) having arrived at or near its usual place for stopping, in Bowdoin Square, in Boston, came to a full stop; that then Elizabeth R. Williamson, the plaintiff in the first action, proceeded to alight from the car, and that, while she was in the act of doing so, defendant's conductor struck the bell, started the car, and thus threw her to the pavement, causing the injuries complained of. The whole evidence as to whether the car was at a full stop when said Elizabeth attempted to alight was conflicting. The evidence also tended to show that the said Elizabeth lost consciousness for a moment on striking the pavement; that several persons immediately came to her assistance, and among them the conductor, who said: “I am very sorry, madam; that was my fault.” Evidence of such admission of defendant's conductor was objected to. The plaintiff contended that the conductor's remark was made at a time so near the act of starting the car, and the fall of the said Elizabeth, that it was a part of the res gestae, but the court excluded the evidence. The defendant offered the testimony of an agent of a foreign insurance company, who testified, in substance, that he solicited from the said Elizabeth, at a date subsequent to the injury complained of, an application for a policy in the company he represented; that she made such application; that he had with him, on the stand, a blank application, such as was used by him at the time; that he asked her the usual questions, and wrote down the answers on the blank, which she afterwards read and signed; that the original blank application thus signed and filed was at the home office in New York; that he had made efforts to get the original from the home office, but that, instead of the original, what purported to be a copy thereof was sent him, which he then produced. Witness also testified that it was an exact copy of the original signed by Mrs. Williamson. Defendant then offered the copy in evidence, which was admitted, subject to plaintiff's exception. The jury returned a verdict for defendant, and plaintiff alleged exceptions.S.H. Dudley, for plaintiff.
The evidence of the exclamation of regret of the conductor immediately, or within a second or so, after the fall of the female plaintiff, was of the utmost consequence to her case; for its admission, under proper instructions to the jury, may well have authorized the jury to find for plaintiff, and its exclusion may well have compelled them to find for defendant. The necessities of plaintiff's case, fortunately, do not require the court to admit, as part of the res gestae, the sayings or exclamations of a person made even several minutes, or after an appreciable lapse of time, after the occurrence of the principal event, and after the conductor had had time to collect his thoughts, and to weigh his words, and thus to make of his exclamations what would then be substantially admissions. To support the plaintiff's contention, the court is not required to go so far, and to trespass so much on the domain of the history of past events, as in Com. v. McPike, 3 Cush. 181;Travelers' Ins. Co. v. Mosley, 8 Wall. 397; Railroad Co. v. Coyle, 55 Pa.St. 402; O'Connor v. Railway Co., 27 Minn. 166,6 N.W.Rep. 481;State v. Horan, 32 Minn. 394,20 N.W.Rep. 905;Harriman v. Stowe, 57 Mo. 93; Railroad Co. v. Goddard, 25 Ind. 185;Cleveland v. Newsom, 45 Mich. 62,7 N.W.Rep. 222;Galveston v. Barbour, 62 Tex. 172. Nor is there need of classing the case with Lane v. Bryant, 9 Gray, 245. In point of lapse of time, the case at bar stands rather with Com. v. Hackett, 2 Allen, 136, which, as to lapse of time, substantially overrules Lane v. Bryant, supra.
It is not necessary that, to be a part of the res gestae, declarations should be precisely and astronomically contemporaneous and concurrent in point of time with the principal transaction, but rather that they be made voluntarily, unpremeditatedly, and spontaneously, and under the immediate and unconscious influence of the principal transaction; and be made at such a time, whether contemporaneous and concurrent or not, and also under such circumstances and conditions, as to exclude the idea of deliberate intent or design. Declarations thus naturally growing out of, and truthfully illustrating and explaining, the principal transaction, must, according to the clearest principles of justice, be admissible in evidence; for thus it is clear that the truth can more readily be arrived at. See cases supra; Rockwell v. Taylor, 41 Conn. 56;People v. Vernon, 35 Cal. 49; Mitchum v. State, 11 Ga. 615; O'Shields v. State, 55 Ga. 696; Handy v. Johnson, 5 Md. 450; State v. Garrand, 5 Or. 216; Frink v. Coe, 4 G. Greene, 555;Enos v. Tuttle, 3 Conn. 250; Railroad Co. v. Fay, 16 Ill. 558.“The res gestae are the statements of the cause made by the assured almost contemporaneously with its occurrence.” Travelers' Ins. Co. v. Mosley, supra. The admission of such evidence is not error as might be implied from 1 Greenl.Ev. § 108. See Lund v. Tyngsborough, 9 Cush. 41.
Those cases where an appreciable and considerable time had elapsed between the principal event and the declarations in question, or where the declarations were not made in the immediate presence, so to speak, of the events which called them forth, dum fervet opus, and when events were not present, but past, and the person whose declarations are in question had had time and opportunity to collect his thoughts, and to consider and deliberate upon the past events, as, for instance, for months, days, hours, or even minutes, do not and ought not in justice to furnish a rule by which to govern the case at bar. A careful examination of the cases which may be cited on this point by the defendant will show that, as adjudications, they rest principally on the lapse of appreciable time between the principal event and the declarations which relate to it, and are sought to be shown in evidence. When the interval of time is narrowed to hours, the authorities begin to diverge, and, when it is reduced to minutes or seconds, those cases which look only to astronomical lapse of time exclude the evidence; but where, as in the cases supra, an attemptis made to consider and weigh all the conditions, circumstances, and relations of the principal event, and of the declarations relating to it, in order to reach the truth more completely, then the lapse of a few seconds or minutes does not render the declarations inadmissible. See Com. v. McPike, supra; Com. v. Hackett,...
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