Alabama Great Southern R. Co. v. Shannon

• Decision Date: 26 April 1915
• Docket Number: 16940
• Citation: 68 So. 165,109 Miss. 230
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ALABAMA GREAT SOUTHERN R. CO. v. SHANNON

68 So. 165

109 Miss. 230

ALABAMA GREAT SOUTHERN R. CO. v. SHANNON

No. 16940

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 26, 1915

APPEAL from the circuit court of Lauderdale county. HON. J. L BUCKLEY, Judge.

Suit by Mrs. Maria V. Shannon against the Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Catchings & Catchings, for appellant.

G. Q Hall and Hall & Jacobson, for appellee.

OPINION

SMITH, C. J.

This is an action for damages resulting from the death of John Shannon, in which a judgment was rendered in the court below for appellees, who were plaintiffs therein. Shannon and Harry Daniell were struck and injured by the same train at the same time, and a case wherein damages were sought to be recovered for the death of Daniell will be found reported under the style of Southern Railway Co. v. Daniell, 66 So. 730. The facts here are identical with the facts there set out in the Daniell Case, except that--First. Shannon was instantly killed. Second. The statement made by Daniell after his injury, that he and Shannon walked to the place where the accident occurred, sat down upon the track, and went to sleep, and "that he didn't know anything until he waked up and found he had been struck by a train," was excluded. This statement was offered as a part of the testimony of the conductor of train No. 214, and was made about thirty minutes after the accident. Third. Shannon's shoes were found by the conductor of train No. 214 placed side by side, outside of, and near one of, the rails of the track, the toes pointing outward, with his coat folded and lying across them.

The statement made by Daniel to the conductor was properly excluded. The rule here sought to be invoked by counsel for appellant is that laid down in 3 Wigmore on Evidence, sections 1746, 1747, that:

"A statement or exclamation by an injured person, immediately, after the injury, declaring the circumstances of the injury, or by a person present at an affray, a railroad collision, or other exciting occasion, asserting the circumstances of it as observed by him," is admissible in evidence. "This general principle is based on the experience that, under certain external circumstances of physical shock, a stress of nervous excitement may be produced which stills the reflective faculties and removes their...