Carr v. West End St. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 02 April 1895 |
| Citation | 40 N.E. 185,163 Mass. 360 |
| Parties | CARR v. WEST END ST. RY. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
This was an action of tort for personal injuries to plaintiff, who was injured in a collision between his team and a car of the defendant. At the trial the defendant's conductor testified that he saw the plaintiff driving his team before the collision, and that plaintiff acted as if intoxicated; that after the accident, when he picked plaintiff up, he could smell liquor; and that he knew plaintiff was intoxicated. In rebuttal, the court, against the defendant's objection and exception, allowed plaintiff's employer to testify to the habits of the plaintiff, and that he (witness) had never known the plaintiff to drink or be drunk. The verdict was for the plaintiff, and defendant excepted. Exceptions sustained.
John Haskell Butler and M.P. Beckett, for plaintiff.
W.B. Sprout, for defendant.
The testimony as to the plaintiff's habits was not admissible to contradict the evidence that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident. Neither was it admissible to meet the testimony brought out by the plaintiff, on cross-examination, that he had been seen intoxicated several times before the accident. The latter testimony was immaterial, and the plaintiff was not entitled to contradict it. McCarty v. Leary, 118 Mass. 509; Shurtleff v. Parker, 130 Mass. 293, 297; Lamagdelaine v. Tremblay, 162 Mass. 339, 39 N.E. 38; Alexander v. Kaiser, 149 Mass. 321, 21 N.E. 376; Harrington v. Lincoln, 2 Gray, 133.
Exceptions sustained.
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