Briggs v. Minneapolis St. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 23 December 1892
• Parties: BRIGGS v MINNEAPOLIS ST. RY. CO.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

52 Minn. 36

53 N.W. 1019

BRIGGSvMINNEAPOLIS ST. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 23, 1892.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. Held, that there was no evidence reasonably tending to show that the death of plaintiff's intestate was caused by the acts of the defendant.

2. Certain hypothetical questions to expert witnesses held to have been properly excluded-First, because they did not fully and accurately state the facts in evidence; and, second, because the matter inquired of was not, under the circumstances, the subject of expert testimony.

Appeal from district court, Hennepin county; LOCHREN, Judge.

Action by Helen Laura Briggs, administratrix of the estate of Arthur S. Briggs, deceased, against the Minneapolis Street Railway Company, to recover damages for causing the death of plaintiff's intestate. From an order dismissing the action, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Geo. W. & Ed. T. Teitsworth and Brooks & Hendrix, for appellant.

Koon, Whelan & Bennett, for respondent.

MITCHELL, J.

This was an action to recover damages for the death of plaintiff's intestate, caused by the alleged wrongful acts of defendant's servants. The principal error assigned is the dismissal of the action by the court, when the plaintiff rested, on the ground that there was no evidence that the death of deceased was caused by the acts of defendant. The evidence was to the effect that deceased had been for 18 years subject to frequent attacks of illness from heart disease. During these attacks, which usually lasted for only a few minutes, he became faint, turned pale, and vomited. According to the testimony of his friends the attacks did not appear to have become more frequent or severe during the years he had been subject to them. On the evening of his death, having just taken his seat as a passenger on one of defendant's cars, he was seized with one of these attacks, turned very pale, vomited, and “fell back” or “leaned over” in his seat, “as if in a faint,” or “just as a drunken man would.” The driver of the car, supposing he was drunk, took hold of him with both hands by one arm, and “took” or “jerked” him off his seat, and “took” or “dragged” (using the terms of different witnesses) him towards the car door, when a passenger took hold of him by the other arm and assisted the driver in removing him from the car, and taking or “dragging” him across the street to the sidewalk, where they laid or set him down. When they placed him on the sidewalk he was still breathing, but made no other motion, and died within a very few minutes. When the driver first went up to him on the car to lay hands on him, he partially raised his head and in a feeble voice said, “Don't, don't,” but never spoke or showed any signs of consciousness afterwards, and while they were removing him he was “as limp as a rag.” Some of the witnesses explain that by “dragging” they meant that the lower part of his body was on the car floor or the ground. It may be conceded that the evidence tended to show that the driver acted rudely and roughly and consequently wrongfully, but there is nothing in the evidence tending in the slightest to show that he did anything that could or would have caused any serious or material physical injury to any one in ordinary health. There were no marks of external violence on his body. Without going into details, or using medical terms, an autopsy disclosed that his heart was very badly diseased, there being both a fatty degeneration and valvular disease of that organ, which was confessedly the immediate cause of his death. In short, he was in that condition that death was liable to ensue as any time whenever extra exertion was thrown upon the heart from any cause whatever, such as physical exertion, excitement, or the like. The strain in vomiting during one of...