Blair v. Pelham
| Decision Date | 22 September 1875 |
| Citation | 118 Mass. 420 |
| Parties | Luke K. Blair v. Inhabitants of Pelham |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Hampshire. Tort for injuries occasioned by an alleged defect in a highway which the defendant was bound to keep in repair. Writ dated September 8, 1874.
At the trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J., the plaintiff put in evidence tending to show that he was travelling in the night time with a horse and buggy; that there was a mud hole in the centre of the road which caused the travel to take one side or the other of this hole; that the road was a raised causeway built through a hollow, the embankment, which was not protected by a rail, being twenty-three inches high; that the horse and buggy went off the embankment. The plaintiff also put in evidence a plan of the road, at the place of the accident, made by a surveyor who testified to certain measurements made by him indicated on the plan. The defendant put in evidence a photograph of the place of the accident, which was not exhibited to the jury, until evidence of the photographer, who took it, was put in. He testified that the photograph was taken by him in December, 1874, and that the position of his instrument, in taking it, was in the middle of the road, about one rod from where the face of the picture begins; that he made no measurements; but made the photograph as fairly as could be. The plaintiff objected to the admission of the evidence.
As tending to show that the defendant had knowledge of the dangerous condition of the road at the place of accident, the plaintiff offered to show that in the year before the accident in question, a person with a horse and carriage went off the same embankment, when the road was in the same condition as at the time of the plaintiff's accident, and that the selectmen and surveyor were then notified that the road was dangerous for want of a railing; but there being no dispute that the road had been for more than twenty-four hours in the same condition as at the time of the accident the judge excluded the evidence.
The jury returned a verdict for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.
Exceptions overruled.
C Delano, for the plaintiff.
D. W. Bond, for the defendant, was not called upon.
1. A plan or picture, whether made by the hand of man or by photography, is admissible in evidence, if verified by proof...
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...to be relevant and helpful to the jury in its deliberations. Howe v. Boston, 311 Mass. 278, 281-282, 41 N.E.2d 1 (1942). Blair v. Pelham, 118 Mass. 420, 421 (1875). The admissibility of photographs, as with other rulings on evidence, is largely committed to the discretion of the trial judge......
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