Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Clements

• Decision Date: 01 December 1911
• Parties: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. CLEMENTS.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

57 So. 52

2 Ala.App. 520

CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. CLEMENTS.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

December 1, 1911

Appeal from Circuit Court, Houston County; H. A. Pearce, Judge.

Action by W. F. Clements against Central of Georgia Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

B. F. Reid, for appellant.

H. L Martin, for appellee.

DE GRAFFENRIED, J.

1. The most difficult practical science of which we have knowledge is the science of medicine. It is a matter of common knowledge that the most eminent diagnosticians frequently disagree as to the true nature or actual cause of a disease. While for some of the simple and common ailments, such as colds, indigestion headaches, etc., the ordinary man suffering therefrom may, in a rough, practical way, assign the cause, nevertheless, when the cause of a disease or of some material ailment of an important organ of the human body is the subject of inquiry only the opinion of a diagnostician, of a man skilled in the mysteries of medicine, can ordinarily be resorted to. And when this is done the law knows that the opinion of an expert is not infallible, and such opinion, when rendered upon a given state of facts, goes to the jury as evidence to be weighed by them, along with the other evidence, in passing on the question as to the true cause of the disease or ailment if that is a subject of material inquiry before them. Mobile Life Ins. Co. v. Walker, 58 Ala. 290; Zinn v. Rice, 161 Mass. 571, 37 N.E. 747.

2. The appellee, after he had alighted, or in attempting to alight from a train of appellant, received certain injuries, but whether they were received by him through the negligence of appellant's servants while acting in the line of their employment was a matter in grave dispute. If the evidence of appellee contained the true version of the matter, there was evidence from which the jury were authorized to find a verdict in his favor. On the other hand, if appellant's witnesses swore truthfully, then there should have been a verdict for the appellant. Their testimony tended to show that appellee's injuries were received after he had alighted from the train, and were caused by reason of the fact that appellee fell over a stool.

3. A few days after receiving the injuries, the appellee was attended by a physician, who, testifying as a witness in behalf of appellee on the trial in the court below, said: "I also found that something had pierced his breast apparently, and took it for granted that it was an umbrella rib that had pierced it. It had a scab on it, but I would not pull it off, and did not probe it." Whether this wound was a mere surface wound, or whether the instrument which made it went through the chest, the evidence fails to disclose. In this evidence of this physician, there is nothing to be found about any injury to appellee's lungs or speaking organs, and the evidence of this physician was appellee's evidence. It appeared from the evidence, that, certainly at one time, and possibly at the time of the trial, appellee complained of a throat or lung trouble, or both, and the court, against the seasonable objection of appellant, permitted the...